The Enemy of My Enemy
by Alex Checnkov
Summary: After RDA's failed, second attempt to conquer Pandora, one-time enemies come together in tenuous alliances to prevent a third attempt; and one of the Na'vi will be chosen to make the ultimate journey in the coming battle. OCs, sequel to an earlier fic.
1. Unfinished Business

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – This story is the continuation of my previous fiction, "The Endeavors of Art."

* * *

Jake's warriors had performed well above his expectations. They had achieved total surprise over the SecOps soldiers at Hell's Gate, and in the short battle had annihilate all but a few; and those survivors had been taken prisoner by Norm and the former avatar team.

In the years leading up to the Resource Development Administration's return to Pandora, Norm made sure the Omaticaya were supplied with a respectable arsenal of human weaponry. The losses they had sustained half a generation earlier in the battle against the army of long-dead Colonel Quaritch had convinced the Na'vi people that, in their next engagement, they needed more than traditional weapons and the hope of Eywa's intervention if they were going to survive.

What had surprised Jake, however, was that RDA had not come back to Pandora with an armada of ships. They had sent one man with a team of specialists. Abe Scheller – "The Irritating One," as Neytiri had named him after their first encounter – had been given the job of pacifying the Na'vi in order to pave the way for RDA's second attempt to exploit Pandora's natural riches.

To do accomplish his mission, he outwardly promised peace with the Na'vi – and, in some cases, appeared to make _bona fide_ attempts to achieve it. Yet all the while he sowed mistrust and discord among Norm and his colleagues in order to break the flow of information getting back to Jake.

On top of that, he sent a former, skilled Special Forces soldier to infiltrate the Omaticaya through a new kind of avatar. The new avatar had its driver's consciousness was downloaded, thus requiring no external support. That infiltrator, Devon Angler, had nearly succeeded in putting an end to Jake's reign as _olo'eyktan_, had he not made the mistake of becoming too deeply involved in his assumed identity.

Devon attempted to secure the unquestioned trust of the people by mating with a beloved acolyte, Mehi'a. When they formed their _tsaheylu_, however, she saw him as he really was – and he killed her for that. Unfortunately for him, she was able to give her consciousness up to Eywa before she died, allowing others to discover Devon's deception.

He was hunted down and executed, his body discarded in the jungle for the animals to feast upon.

Abe and the rest of his team might have likewise been executed, had Norm not intervened and insisted that human justice prevail. Their crime, he argued, was to have chosen the wrong side of the fight for Earth's preservation.

Jake had done all he could to try and forget about Earth, everything he could do to submit himself to Eywa and live among the people as one of them; but the fact remained that he was born a human. He had been one of the Sky People. Back in that life, he had been just as ready to help RDA to in order to satisfy his own needs. The people had given him the chance to atone for the pain his deceptions had brought down on them, and he was unable to take that opportunity away from Abe and his people.

Whether or not they had made the most of that opportunity was still up in the air. Jake had spared their lives only after Abe had agreed to keep RDA's mercenaries contained, and it was a bargain which had infuriated Parker Selfridge. Abe had brought him out of his exile in order to give him the chance to correct the mistakes he had made during his tenure as Hell's Gate's administrator. Instead, he managed to notify RDA's leadership about Abe's deal with Jake, and in so doing put into motion the second great massacre of humans on Pandora.

Parker, along with a number of defectors from Abe's team, had paid a heavy price for his decision. In his attempt to escape the slaughter, he was shot out of the sky by a contingent of warriors at Neytiri's command; and when he emerged only slightly wounded from the wreckage, she made sure that the last thing to pass through his mind was her arrow.

In addition to ordering an assault on the people, RDA's leadership disowned Abe. However, if they had assumed that he would simply return to Earth and submit to their punishment – which assumed that they had not arranged for a more expedient form of termination – they were wrong.

In the months that he had been on Pandora, Abe had demonstrated to Jake an uncanny ability to think several steps ahead of his opponents – even though Jake had to concede that, for many people, it was not difficult to think far ahead of him. But as he stood amidst the carnage of the day's battle with Norm and Neytiri, who was in fact sitting, given her advanced stage of pregnancy, Abe managed to surprise him once again by demonstrating just how much thought he had already given to the consequences of betraying his former bosses.

Abe went on at length, and in detail, with his plans for exacting revenge on RDA. Jake was as taken aback by the scope of Abe's planning as much as he was by how calm Abe appeared in describing it. Unlike too many people who would smile in awe of their own genius as they laid out their master plans, or who, like Norm, would become increasingly uncomfortable with the stench of death that had begun to settle over the base, Abe plodded along like a teacher giving a lesson to a class, and a boring teacher at that.

The plan he described was as intricate as it was dangerous, leading Jake to conclude at the end of the demonstration, "You're insane."

After going so long without a hint of emotion, Abe grinned and replied, "Thank you."

"No, that wasn't a compliment," Jake emphasized. "I mean that you obviously went crazy in that holding cell. You're one-hundred percent bonkers."

Abe's grin faded. "Do you or do you not agree that the only way to ensure the safety of this place is to get rid of RDA at its source?"

"Of course I do, but you would need an army to do it – and they practically control the Army!"

"Jake's right," Norm said. "You can't just walk in and take down the largest quasi-government on Earth."

"Yet that didn't stop you and Jake's brother from trying," Abe replied.

Shortly before the battle against Quaritch, Norm had detailed for Jake the plans he had made with Tom, whose death was the reason for Jake being on Pandora in the first place. They had intended to use their positions in the avatar program to gather evidence of RDA's atrocities to be used as evidence in the court of public opinion. Unfortunately, that plan literally failed to leave Earth, but Jake saw to it that Tom's intentions were fulfilled.

"Yeah, and it wouldn't have worked out, now would it have?"

Abe described for them moments earlier how similar plots had been hatched and foiled several times in RDA's history. If Norm and Tom had carried on as planned, it likely would have been Abe, in his former role as RDA's dreaded Chief of Asset Management and Information Security, who would have taken them down – if not agents of the many world governments who conspired with RDA to sustain its monopoly on Pandora.

"No, it wouldn't," Abe said casually.

"So why will it be any different this time around?" Jake asked.

"Because while RDA has plenty of experience dealing with disgruntled employees, it's not accustomed to having senior executives come back from the dead."

Jake frowned and said, "That's not all that convincing."

"The Trojans didn't see the horse coming," Abe replied. "The British didn't see Washington bearing down on Trenton, New York didn't see the planes, and nobody saw Turkey's march on Iran. Surprise attacks have a very nasty way of being effective."

"Nine-Eleven's debatable," Norm said. Jake and Abe exchanged a stunned look before turning to Norm, silently asking for him to provide further explanation. "What?" he said, scoffing. "You guys think we've been told everything?"

Abe sighed, shook his head, and then continued on his original point. "Nobody knows RDA's weaknesses better than I do. Short of Chairman Savage finding Jesus, RDA isn't going to give up. The fight has to be brought to them."

"Why should we trust you to do it?" Neytiri asked, making no attempt to mask the hostility of her question. "You have not said you care for the people, only for yourself."

Abe took a deep breath, crossed his arms and replied, "Honestly, Neytiri, I don't care much for the Na'vi." He nodded towards a group of Jake's warriors who were occupying themselves by divesting the SecOps corpses of their more precious, worldly possessions. "I haven't been given a whole lot of reasons to."

Norm snorted and said, "You were the one who came down here with your encyclopedic knowledge of Native Americans. Welcome to Little Bighorn, Custer."

"What you see is because of your deceptions," Neytiri continued. "If you had taken a different path, perhaps you would see the people for who they are, not who you imagine."

"The road less traveled doesn't exist," he said. Neytiri, like Jake, did not get the reference, and Abe did not take the time to explain it. He only sighed and said, "You can trust me because it benefits both of us to have RDA come crashing down, even if our reasons are different."

"I am not convinced," she replied.

"That's why I've offered one of you to come with me to make sure the job gets done."

Jake let out a short laugh and said, "I'm definitely not going back to Earth, if for no other reason than because I'm not leaving my child."

"I figured as much," Abe replied. "I meant 'you' as in 'you, Na'vi.'"

"The people will not go," Neytiri said. "It is you Sky People who travel between worlds, but our love for Eywa, and Eywa's love for us, will keep us here."

"How were you planning to get one of them to Earth anyway?" Norm asked. He added with a crooked smile, "I mean, I'm sure you have it all planned out, of course."

"The chances of successfully transferring Devon's consciousness to his avatar body and back with our equipment were one in sixteen," Abe replied. "Our ship's cryobay has one Na'vi-prepared chamber."

Neytiri protested again. "This is not our way," she said. "Too many of the people have sacrificed themselves in the fight to save our world. We will not send one to die for yours."

"Our worlds are linked, now," Abe said. "If you want to ensure the safety of this world, one of you has to come back to ours to testify about what's happened here."

"We have tons of evidence already," Norm replied. "We don't need to bring one of the Na'vi back to prove any of this."

Abe chuckled. "A moment ago you were ready to sell us on the false flag of Nine-Eleven, and now you're willing to buy that all of RDA's skeptics will readily convince themselves that one of their executives went rogue and, of his own accord, staged an attack to dismantle their Pandora operations? Who's to say all your evidence isn't manufactured like the rest of RDA's propaganda?"

"Who's to say that the Na'vi you bring back isn't just an actor in an avatar's body?" Norm replied pointedly. "Maybe you've just found another Special Forces guy who knows how to play the part."

Abe did not respond right away, slowly nodding his head while he digested Norm's argument. Eventually he said, "That could well be the case, but somehow I think even the deepest skeptics will know the real thing when they see it."

Neytiri still did not look convinced, but Jake was starting to understand the point – uncomfortable though he was with it. The people could not possibly conceive of a place like Earth, and overwhelmingly would not want anything to do with it if given the choice. However, there was always the chance of a too curious minority.

Jake sighed after he thought about Abe's suggestion. He looked at Neytiri and said, "We should let the people decide this."

Her eyes went wide at his suggestion. "You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. "It is a sacrifice for no good."

"If someone is willing to sacrifice in order to guarantee that the people live in peace, we shouldn't deny them the chance because we think it's suicidal."

Neytiri shook her head. "They won't go," she said.

"Then _T'ngyute_ will just have to come up with another plan," he replied. "We won't force the people to accept this, but we should give them the choice."

"It's getting late," Abe said. "I'll leave it to you guys to figure out who, if anybody, will come back with me." He looked at Norm and said, "In the meantime, the Kansas City Shuffle needs a body."

* * *

Norm was nervous. Over the last few months, he had stood guard over Abe while he provided bogus status updates to RDA's Chairman of the Board, James Savage, but he never pictured himself giving such a briefing.

"Relax," Abe said from the opposite side of the desk as he typed out a script for the conversation. "The more confident you are, then the more likely Savage will believe what you're saying. That's lying one-oh-one."

"What if SecOps has already checked in?" Norm asked. "Their ship is still up there with a crew, and they have superluminal capability."

"Superluminal communication is only good for sending small packets of information," Abe replied without looking up from his work. "We're talking in real time, which they can't do. Even if the _Event Horizon_ has sent something ahead of us about the battle, we'll be able to provide whatever filler we want."

"That's fair enough, I guess."

"We're fine." A moment later, Abe handed Norm his tablet. "Stick to this script."

Norm took a minute to scroll through the questions and answers Abe had drafted. "You really think it's going to go like this?"

Abe nodded. "The Chairman doesn't have a knack for asking probative questions. That's what I got paid to do. It also helps that I've worked with him for a few years. If the conversation strays, then keep in mind that you're 'the new guy,' so feel free to say you don't have an answer."

"Okay," Norm replied. "I hope you're right." More to the point, Norm hoped – could only hope – that Abe was not stabbing him in the back. He knew he was taking a gamble, but he was not in a position to do much else. "So, who am I playing again?"

"You're whoever he was," Abe said casually as he handed Norm a bloodied pair of dog tags. "I saw sergeant's chevrons on his shirt when I pulled the tags, so you should be okay if they check the name."

Norm checked the name of the deceased.

GOLDBERG, JACOB L

8813442155 RDASEC

O NEG

NORELPREF

"I wonder where he was from," Norm said. "He came all the way out here from there just to get killed."

Abe shrugged. "If this all had played out differently, he'd be alive. It didn't, and he's not."

Norm was shocked by the response. "That's callous."

"It's reality." Abe crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "I figured you would have cared more about all the Na'vi lives that were likely saved by his dying."

Norm shook his head and said, "That's not a numbers game I want to play. The whole thing is pretty pointless."

"This isn't the time for bleeding hearts," Abe replied sternly. "We're in a survival situation. People won't stop dying if we all throw our hands up because we're too afraid to make sacrifices."

"It's easy to say that when you're the guy making the decisions. What about the poor fucks like Jacob?"

Once again, Abe merely shrugged. "There are twenty billion people, Norm. They can't all be special." He must have taken note of Norm's look of incredulity, because he sighed and added, "One of the guys lying out on that tarmac getting butchered by the Na'vi is named Dick Talbott. He was on the security detail for my office back in San Francisco. I saw him every evening for two years. He was thirty-eight, divorced twice and originally from Richmond, Virginia.

"Dick, like Jacob, chose to join SecOps. He chose to sign up for this mission. He knew people had died before him, and that he could just as well be killed. Those aren't choices we made for him.

"If Parker hadn't tipped our hand, then Dick, Jacob and their comrades would be under Na'vi guard, sitting around and waiting to go home. Instead, he died. What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm not disputing that," Norm replied. "I'm saying that you could do a little more than just think of him as cannon fodder."

"I did. If it were up to me, he'd still be alive," Abe said. The two stared at each other for a moment. Norm tried to discern if Abe actually placed value on Jacob's life, or if he was running through another, well rehearsed script.

He could not find the answer.

Exasperated, Norm shook his head and said, "Whatever. When am I supposed to call in?"

"My guess is that they're holding it open, so you might as well try now."

Norm activated the communications terminal and entered the access codes Abe had provided earlier. After an agonizingly long delay, long enough for Norm's stomach to tie itself in a myriad of knots, the terminal signaled a successful connection.

"Gray, is that you?" a voice boomed from the terminal.

Norm had only heard James Savage's voice once, back when he joined RDA and had to sit through an orientation video. The orientation had gone on for so long that there was no way he would ever forget that voice. "No, sir, this is, um, Sergeant Jacob Goldberg."

"Where's Gray?"

"He's dead, sir." Abe pointed at the script. "Somehow the Na'vi learned we were here, and they ambushed us while we were unloading supplies. He didn't make it out."

There was a moment of silence. "Of course they knew you were coming. Parker's message to Gray said as much."

Norm looked at Abe with wide eyes, worried that their cover was already blown. Once again, Abe simply pointed at the script. Sure enough, he had anticipated the response. "I don't know anything about that, sir. I'm not important enough to be told those kinds of things."

"I guess not," Savage mused. "Where is Parker? Or Abe for that matter? Were you at least told about them?"

Savage had jumped ahead in the script. "Uh, yeah. Sir. We had the ship unloaded and were escorting the high priorities out, but the hostiles went for the ship first. The high priorities were killed."

"Parker wasn't supposed to be grouped in with Abe. I gave him a pass."

"No sir, but he was out there to observe." Norm editorialized, "He took an arrow to the head."

"That's unfortunate," Savage replied, his tone far from mournful. "Gray said he was planning an attack on the Na'vi base. What do you know about that?"

He was back on script. "It was a cakewalk. Apparently they sent all their fighters out to attack us, so their home was undefended. But they haven't come back yet, so I don't know all the details."

"That's fine," he replied. "As long as those monkeys get the message that we're back, and that their place is out of our way."

"I think they've gotten that loud and clear, sir."

Savage did not take the time to offer congratulations. "It sounds like your people got beat up," he said.

"Yes sir, but we can hold our own."

"I'm sure you can, Sergeant," Savage replied. "If you can hold on for another five years, however, you'll have plenty of reinforcements to 'spread the good word,' as they used to say."

Norm paused to scroll through the script, but he could not find an equivalent. "Five years? I thought the mining crew was just a month away."

"They are," Savage said. "After I read the defense plan Abe and his people sent up, however, I got the sense that they were going soft on the locals. About five months ago I launched the rest of the fleet." He paused. "We're going to put that world down, Sergeant. If they wanted to keep it, they should have evolved the means to stop us. There's going to be no more of this pussyfooting around."

Norm took a moment to digest what he had been told, and he looked at Abe for a reaction. He was seemingly stoic. He took a deep breath and replied, "Yes sir."

"So what are you doing about the prisoners who aren't dead?"

"Our Valkyries are down, so we're going to have to wait for the miners to show up with their shuttles before we can get them off world."

"All right. We'll be sure to have a nice welcome home ceremony for them," he said with a chuckle. "Do you have anything else to report?"

He was about to end the call when Abe insistently pointed at the script. Norm scrolled to the bottom. "Um, those science guys have a lot of information here. What are we supposed to do with it?"

"Get it together and stream it to me," another voice said.

"Who is this?"

"Doctor Thomas Walsh, Chief of Research and Development."

"Um, okay. It's a lot, though…"

"Then next time, Sergeant," Doctor Walsh interrupted. "We can wait. We've waited long enough."

"Okay." Abe indicated the script again, so Norm continued, "Um, Doctor, did you go to MIT?"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" he replied abruptly.

Norm looked at Abe with brows raised, quietly asking the same question. Abe just nodded. "Do you remember Gerald Wheaton?"

There was a pause. "We were roommates for a year."

"He's my uncle. Your name sounded familiar. He mentioned you at our last family reunion."

"Is that so?"

Again, Norm looked to Abe for an explanation, but again he just nodded at the script. "Yeah. Um, I was wondering if you still talk to him, if you could let him know to tell my folks that I'm okay. Mom worries."

"I won't go out of my way to do it," he replied, "but sure."

"Is there anything of relevance to _us_ that you want to report on, Sergeant?" Savage interjected. "Or can we save a few million dollars and shut down the wormhole?"

"Yes sir, sorry."

"Call back in a month after the miners arrive. Earth out."

Norm took a moment to make sure that the connection was closed, and then he asked Abe, "What was that all about?"

"Tom is my wife's father-in-law from her first marriage," he said. "He hates his son, but loves my wife. If I'm going to be dead to the world, I don't want to be dead to her."

Norm cocked his head and asked, "You just happened to have a coded phrase on hand in the event you faked your death?"

"My job isn't always about analyzing field reports and briefing executives," Abe replied. "So yes, I have couriers for these kinds of messages."

"Well, I'm glad your wife gets to know you're okay," Norm said with a snort, in his mind wishing that she had rather been put through the torment of believing Abe had died. "But if you didn't hear it, they've already launched their army. We're too late to do anything about it."

Abe shook his head and said, "We'll just have to take the _Cybele_ back. It's faster than the ISVs by a good eight months. We got here earlier than you expected, right? There's still a window to stop them." Norm was skeptical, but he did not respond. Abe continued, "We have to get our team put together in the meantime. Who on your side do you think would come back?"

"Nobody," Norm said candidly and without hesitation. "This is their home, now, and their kids' home. They won't leave it."

"Well, give them tonight to celebrate victory," Abe replied, "and then tell it to them plainly: If we fail, they're going to be wiped out. Maybe that will be enough to change their minds."

* * *

Tseyo was more than pleased with his war prizes. After the battle had ended, he had taken to the field and recovered the masks of those Sky People he had struck down with his arrows. He cleaned the last of the blood away, and then hung them on his rack next to the other prized possessions and trinkets that he had collected in his life.

Far below his hammock, on _Kelutral_'s floor,the tribe's victory celebration carried on into its second night. They had only paused during the day to bury their dead – and they were sure _olo'eyktan_ would return soon with other fallen comrades to bury – but the mourning was tempered, as their sacrifice had been noble. The Sky People's attempt to launch a surprise attack on their home was a complete failure, thanks in no small part to their leader's insistence on training a warrior band to use the Sky People's weapons against them.

Tseyo had been among the doubters when Jakesully introduced the alien machines to the clan. The weapons of their ancestors, and Eywa's intervention, had been enough to turn back the Sky People once before. However, unlike that battle, this time there was no great loss of warriors. The Sky People had been cut down too quickly to put up much of a fight. As a result, the Omaticaya would not have to wait a generation or longer for their numbers to replenish or, as was the case with him and his sister, make provisions to take special care of orphans.

His father was killed when their ancestral home was destroyed by the Sky People, and his mother had died on the long trek to find a new home. Whereas some children were adopted by friendly clans they encountered along their journey, he and his sister, Mehi'a, had chosen to stay with the Omaticaya.

Unfortunately, she too would be taken from him by the Sky People – a deceiver, Mu'kuti, who came into their clan to gain their friendship, only so he could betray them all. They might not have known about this plot had Mehi'a not given herself to Mu'kuti, bonded with him and learned his true identity, and then lived just long enough to impart what she knew to Eywa.

Even though her death had served a purpose, and Tseyo knew that her energy was now part of a greater existence, he would still catch himself in grief. Tonight, however, he was jubilant.

Tseyo climbed down from his hammock to join the rest of the clan. Drums pounded and flutes sang along with dancing spirits. Terracotta bowls were gathered in a pile and still carried the pungent, unmistakable odor of _tìngasunilzyu_. He grabbed a random bowl and sought out one of the many gourds containing the intoxicating brew.

He did not have to search far.

As he filled his bowl, a hand came down firmly on his shoulder. He turned and saw Khutxo, who grinned at him and said, "Can I share a drink with you, brother?"

Khutxo was one of Tseyo's least favorite people. He and some of his close friends isolated themselves from the tribe shortly after Jakesully's ascension to _olo'eyktan_. They would perform duties as expected in service of the tribe, but they never accepted Jakesully's authority. Khutxo had plotted with the deceiver to bring down Jakesully's rule; and although he maintained he was unaware of Mu'kuti's life as one of the Sky People, he had been sent into a brief exile as a punishment for the conspiracy.

When Khutxo was allowed back to the tribe ahead of the final battle, he pledged himself to _olo'eyktan_'s command, but Tseyo had his doubts. Tonight, however, was not a night for grudges, so he nodded and replied, "Of course, brother."

Tseyo poured half of his bowl into Khutxo's, and the two drank together. Once finished, Khutxo wiped his lips and said, "I think that's the finest we've had in a long time."

"Eywa ripened the fruit to celebrate our victory," Tseyo replied. "I would have been too young to remember how it tasted the last time."

"I recall it was about the same," Khutxo said.

Tseyo grinned and replied, "Then you must not have had enough of it."

Khutxo laughed. "There were so many drinking after that battle, there wasn't enough for everyone to become forgetful." He put a hand on Tseyo's shoulder. "Brother, we've had our disagreements, but I want to make amends. The way you fought proves you're someone of honor, and I want to respect that."

"Khutxo, you don't…"

"I insist," he interrupted. He let his bowl fall to the ground, and then reached into a pouch on his belt. From it he pulled a ring that was polished more brilliantly than Tseyo had ever seen. "This was on my kill," he said. "I would like you to have it."

Tseyo took the ring carefully, afraid he might somehow spoil its beauty. It was gold, a metal sometimes collected by accident in fishermen's nets at the river, but almost never refined and polished to this kind of purity. "I can't accept this," he said. "This is better given as a gift to your mate."

Khutxo waved him off, taking Tseyo's bowl and refilling it for him. "Fyatia has many gifts of mine," he said. "And now that she carries our child, she would rather I bring her hides and weaves." He returned Tseyo's bowl and put his arm around his shoulder, walking him towards the main gathering. "You, however, I understand are neither mated nor courting. Am I right?"

He let out a short, nervous laugh and said, "You are right."

Khutxo's hand gripped his shoulder more firmly, "This is unacceptable for a warrior of your standing. Tseyo, Eywa's warrior against the demons, should have a mate."

He did not respond, choosing instead to drink from his bowl.

Khutxo laughed. "Don't be shy, friend. Which of our many, fine women do you want to have share your hammock?"

Tseyo knew whom he would choose, but he never dared to say her name, much less approach her. He found her in conversation with her sisters near the main fire and nodded in her direction. Khutxo followed his gaze and chuckled. "Ah," he said as he grinned. "Naw'ngié is a _fine_ choice, friend."

"She's also a much more proven warrior than I am," he replied. Even though Naw'ngié was not too much older than Tseyo, she had shown great skill as a hunter – so much so that Jakesully had named her to lead the _kunpongu_, the select group of warriors trained to become proficient in the Sky People's weaponry. Tseyo knew more than a few males who had their eyes on her, and just as many were intimidated by her.

"Maybe," Khutxo replied with a nod. "But you are not without your own merits. However, a woman like Naw'ngié respects courage more than anything else; so if you don't have the courage to approach her—," his voice trailed off and he shrugged.

Tseyo thought about this, and then consumed the rest of his drink.

* * *

Abe sat on the edge of his desk and waited for his team's reaction. They had been stung by Scott and Miguel's defection to Parker's side, and now they were in the same boat as Abe: Considered traitors and a liability by RDA. He had hoped that would be enough to keep them on his side.

"You're insane," Amy said.

He chuckled at the military strategist and replied, "So I've been told."

"You actually want us to believe that we – just us – can take the fight to RDA, a corporation that is practically a country in its own right, and come out on top?"

"We have more allies than you think…" he began to say.

Amy interrupted him. "I'd rather go it alone than partner up with a bunch of hippies," she said. "A bunch of hippies who, by the way, haven't brought down RDA in decades of fighting them."

"That's because they're going about it wrong," he replied. "Fighting RDA in court is a losing proposition. Staging protests and throwing stink bombs is a waste of time. Few of them have bothered to take the time to get _inside_ RDA to break it down from within."

"If I'm not mistaken," Matthew, the team's xenobotanist and medical advisor, replied, "wouldn't that mean you'd be bad at your job?"

"If they were successful, yes," he said with a half smile. Abe's primary role in RDA was to root out infiltrators and close up potential security breaches. It was a job he managed to excel in. "But given that I am good at my job…"

"Former job," Dawn corrected, giving him a moment's pause. The xenolinguist and computer engineer had been responsible for encouraging Abe's agent inside the Omaticaya to pursue a romantic relationship with one of the Na'vi, the result of which had been the downfall of the entire operation. He knew she could not have foreseen the consequences of her advice, but he still had not come around to forgiving her.

"…former job, thank you, I know how they could have succeeded. We can avoid their mistakes."

Matthew shook his head and said, "By the time we get back to Earth, RDA's going to have another AMIS Chief. Who's been running the show in your absence?"

"A guy named John Tucker," he replied. "He's good, but not as good as I am. I didn't want him to show me up and take my job permanently when I got back."

"Well, by the time you get back, John will have had eleven years to get good at his job. That or he'll have screwed it up and given RDA reason to hire someone who's really good, maybe even better than you."

Abe nodded. "Probably, yes."

"And that's not a factor in your planning?"

"It is," he replied. "But I'm expecting that the element of surprise will mitigate it."

"Boss, I'm still hung up on why exactly we're being asked to sacrifice ourselves for the Na'vi," Kim said. "A few months ago, they were ready to tie us up and cut our throats. Can't we let them rot?"

Kim had come to Pandora to help restore Hell's Gate to operational status. Now, it would become a monument to the time that humanity dared to challenge Pandora. "It's not about the Na'vi," he replied. "It's never been about the Na'vi. Our job, fired or not, is to ensure the survival of humanity. Until a few months ago, I had been under the assumption that Pandora was essential to that survival – and maybe it used to be.

"Kim, you were sitting there when Parker admitted RDA had conspired with the Interplanetary Commerce Administration to suppress pandorium supplies, were you not?"

"Yeah, and I was also sitting there when you said you'd keep quiet about it."

He nodded again. "I did, but that's no excuse to let wave after wave of people be sent like lambs to the slaughter to keep it quiet."

"People were dying before we got here," Jose, another xenolinguist, said. "I don't see what's changed."

"I was sent here to keep people from dying," Abe said. "The hard truth is that it's more expensive to keep replacing soldiers, at least up here, than it is to keep them based for five years. It's beyond expensive to wipe out the Na'vi, especially if the only purpose in doing so is to satisfy the ego of one man."

His team exchanged looks that indicated he had not entirely won them over. Eventually Amy asked, "If it weren't expensive – in terms of lives or resources – to wipe out the Na'vi to save humanity, would you do it?"

Abe took a moment to consider the question. He then took a deep breath and said, "I'm a father. I'll put my girl's future over everything else."

"Even our lives?" Matthew asked.

He snorted and said, "Especially yours, Doctor."

Matthew chuckled and flipped him his middle finger, and in doing so broke the tension that had settled over the room. Abe and his team allowed themselves to laugh for a few moments, but then Abe regained his composure and said, "I'm not going to force any of you to participate in this, even if I could. I know the risks, and I've tried to be as open about them with you as I can. If you want to opt out, say so, and you'll go home on the _Event Horizon_."

"Can't we stay here?" Jose asked.

Abe shook his head. "Our last job before Jake lets us off the hook is to turn back the miners, hopefully without another massacre, and then he and his warriors will make sure we're on our way back to Earth."

Jose frowned and said, "Well, that sucks." He took a deep breath and added, "I didn't join up with Parker because I'm not a backstabber. Same goes for RDA. If my job's over, then it's over."

Abe nodded. "That's fair. Anyone else?"

Kim raised her hand. "I'm not here to do any favors for the monkeys."

"That's also fair," he replied. "Colonel? Doctor? Dawn?"

The three looked at each other from their respective chairs, and then Matthew said with a shrug, "Aw Hell, why the fuck not? We're with you."

Abe smiled and said, "Eloquently put, Doctor." He sighed and concluded, "Well, all right, that's all I had. We're officially disbanded, but I'll be calling on you as I need you." As they left his office, he nodded at Amy and asked, "Can you stick around for a moment, Colonel?"

"What do need?"

He waited a moment until the last of the others were comfortably out of earshot, and then he closed the door. "What's your relationship with Norm at this point?"

She let out a short laugh and asked, "How long have you known?"

"Since about when Parker called him your boyfriend and you told him to fuck off," he replied as he took a seat next to her.

Amy raised her eyebrows and grinned. "It really took you that long?"

He shrugged. "I probably could have guessed sooner, but I was more concerned with your getting information from him than getting too close." She looked down and took a deep breath, prompting him to ask, "Was it more than that?"

"It _was_, yes."

"What's changed?"

Amy looked at him like he had asked the dumbest possible question. "Maybe you missed it, but he handed us over for execution and then imprisoned us."

"He also flew in and saved us," Abe offered. "And if I have to choose between execution and imprisonment, I'll take the latter each time."

"Yeah, well, that's not exactly the foundation of a healthy relationship, is it?"

He chuckled. "Stranger things have happened."

She did not respond directly, instead asking, "Why are you interested in my relationship with Norm all of a sudden? We're over."

"Maybe I'm just a sucker for workplace romances," he said with a grin. When she did not respond to his attempt to be light hearted, he sighed and said, "I never told you to go Jane Bond and sleep with him to get information, you found something to like in him on your own. Just because everything else fell apart doesn't mean your relationship ought to follow suit."

"That's not the most convincing argument," she replied.

"Secondary to that, then, is that Norm's onboard with this mission. Can I at least expect that you won't let the end of your relationship get in the way of the task at hand?"

Amy snorted and said, "What makes you think that won't just make me drop out?"

"Because you're a professional," he replied. "You're not the type to let petty shit get in the way of your goals."

She nodded and said, "I can't make any promises. We fought just as much as we f— as much as we did anything else, but I'll make the effort."

"That's as much as I'll ask," he replied. She nodded again, and then stood to leave. Before she was gone, though, he said, "Just one more thing to add."

"Yes?"

"Norm's probably not my favorite person," he said with a short laugh, "but speaking as one man on behalf of another, he's been through Hell. He's been stranded for twelve years, his best friend is happily married while his only female companions are all spoken for, and he's just been asked for a third time to save a planet of aliens who don't care much for him. If he's a little schizophrenic when it comes to relationships, there's good reason for it."

She scoffed at him and said, "I'll keep that in mind."

* * *

Even though their victory was still fresh, the clan's revelry had become much more tempered in the days that followed. Jake and the others had brought back the warriors who had fallen at Hell's Gate, and they were given their final respects. Now was the time for more serious discussions.

Jake and Neytiri held counsel with the clan's leaders in order to inform them of Abe's plan to fight off RDA back on Earth. Nakllte, Jake's warrior general, was the first to weigh in. "This is a good plan," he said. "They have struck at us twice, and it's time we sent them our own message."

Mo'at, Neytiri's mother and the clan's former _tsahik_, who was still highly revered among the people for her deep connection to Eywa, nodded in agreement. "We cannot wait for them to come back. If the Sky People want to carry our struggle on their shoulders, we should support them."

Jake sighed and said, "There is one thing about T'ngyute's plan that I haven't yet detailed." He looked over to Neytiri, who just shook her head. "He wants one of the people to go back with him."

The council was silent for an uncomfortably long time, until Nakllte said, "He's crazy."

"I tried to tell him that."

"Why would we ever send one of the people to fight in their home? Their problems are their own to solve."

"Their problems are the reason for our problems," Jake said. "Believe me, the Sky People view this place as the way to peace. As long as they believe that they can use this world for their own ends, there won't be any peace here."

"But why, Jakesully, would one of the people have to go to your Earth make the Sky People see what they are doing to us?" Mo'at asked. "Their lives are here."

"There are people back on Earth who don't like what happens here," Jake said, "but the ones responsible for the destruction we've faced have convinced most that they are doing no harm. One of the people has to bear witness to what's happened here in order to convince the Sky People to leave our home alone."

Khutxo, one of Jake's chief rivals since he became _olo'eyktan_, had become one of Jake's advisors in order to keep the warriors loyal to him from splintering the clan. To Jake's surprise, Khutxo nodded and said, "I understand what you're saying, and I agree. Their home is dead, and so they want to steal the energy from here to revive their home. Am I right?"

Jake nodded, "You are, Khutxo."

"Then we should send them a message," he said, "that we will defend the energy of our home with our lives."

"Whoever goes will be gone for a very long time," Neytiri said. "It is cruel to ask a person to leave for so long."

"And what if this is another of T'ngyute's tricks?" Nakllte asked. "What if he just wants to take one of our people back to your Earth to turn that person into a _uniltìrantokx_? He could infiltrate the clan again and do terrible things."

Jake chuckled at Nakllte's interpretation of how avatars were created. Although he appreciated the warrior's mistrust of Abe, he replied, "I can promise that won't happen, friend. That's not how it works."

"Maybe the person won't become a dreamwalker," Neytiri offered, "but what if that person begins to see things as the Sky People do? The clan could never accept such a person back home. The Sky People may be defeated, but at the cost of a person's life with the people."

Jake had little reason to be amused at that comment. He shook his head and said, "I can also promise, Neytiri, that no person born here would fall in love with Earth."

"That's not what I meant, Jake," she replied. "Away from their home, this person will be away from Eywa and the energy here. There will only be the Sky People's ways, and that could corrupt a person's sight."

He took a moment to digest what she was saying, but again he shook his head and replied, "No. If the people rejected the Sky People's ways here, they won't find anything redeeming on Earth."

Neytiri frowned, but she did not put forward any additional arguments. She and Jake had spoken about this aspect of Abe's plan extensively on their way back from Hell's Gate, and they had exhausted each other with their differing conclusions. So instead of going at Jake directly, Neytiri turned to Mo'at and asked, "What do you think, mother?"

Mo'at did not respond right away, and nobody would dare show her disrespect by interrupting her thoughtful silence. After a while, she took a deep breath and said, "There is no song to instruct us on this. My daughter is right, however. It would be very painful for someone to separate from Eywa's energy."

Neytiri turned to Jake and, almost imperceptibly, grinned at him. Jake recalled memories from his childhood, moments when he or Tom would gain the upper hand in an argument by a successful appeal to either their mother or father. Tom was smart enough to usually do this before, or at least better than, Jake. In response, Jake, just as faintly, narrowed his eyes in disgust at Neytiri's underhandedness.

She noticed his reaction, and her grin became more perceptible.

But Mo'at, much like Jake's mother, was just as careful to not pit one child against another. "Jakesully, you are also right." Neytiri's grin faded. "We must protect our home by removing the danger entirely. A hunter who is stalked by _palulukan_ cannot wait to be attacked; he must take action."

"One hunter is very rarely enough to bring down _palulukan_," Khutxo added. "It takes many warriors with many weapons. T'ngyute is one weapon, your Norm is one weapon, and the people are yet another."

Nakllte took a deep breath and said, almost mournfully, "_Olo'eyktan_, it sounds like you have made up your mind."

Jake nodded. "I have."

"And you, Khutxo?"

"I have."

He looked at Mo'at, "Respected mother?"

"I have."

Jake understood that Nakllte was counting the votes, and he found he was in the minority – along with Neytiri. He took another deep breath and asked, "How will we choose the person who will go with the Sky People?"


	2. Action Items

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

Tseyo woke up early after the tribe's celebration, and then traveled back to the site where the Sky People had been cut down. He was hoping the creatures of the jungle had not carried away the materials for his crafts, and he was not disappointed.

On the ground where the _kunpongu_ had been positioned were countless, metallic artifacts strewn about. He was told that each one was a quiver for an arrow that was launched from the Sky People's weapons, but they looked to him more like thin, elongated beads. They were made of something less precious than gold, but still rare to him. As Tseyo found evidence that others of his clan had been back to the site in order to scavenge souvenirs, he wasted no time gathering up as many of the beads as he could carry, as he doubted he would be able to return for a second collection if he came up short this morning.

His next treasure, however, was not on the jungle's floor, but among the bodies of the slain: the hands and teeth of his two kills. Severing the hands was easy, but Tseyo encountered more difficulty collecting the teeth. For the time he spent at the grisly task, Tseyo would discover that the putrid smell of death which permeated throughout the battlefield, perceptible almost from the moment he left _Kelutral_'s shelter, was less easily removed from clothing than were even the teeth from their skulls.

After he did manage to pry the teeth loose, Tseyo sat on the shore of a nearby pond – his clothes hung from a tree to dry after a second washing, the stench of death having clung to them – while he not-too-delicately removed the soft tissues from the dismembered hands. Although he wanted to ensure he harvested the bones unbroken, he felt little obligation to respect the bodies of the Sky People. After he had laid out the bones from the hands, he dropped them into a gourd of boiling water in order to macerate remaining tissue. Following a long swim in the pond – and after his clothes had dried from a fourth washing – he drained the boiling water and returned to _Kelutral_.

He stayed in his hammock the next day to polish the bones, teeth, and metal beads he had collected. The following day, he set about the meticulous task of assembling the beads into a two string necklace, using sap to ensure the beads would not slip out of their loops. In order to merge the two strings into a single piece of jewelry, he used the ring Khutxo gifted to him as the centerpiece.

Tseyo set the necklace aside and began work on his second craft. He carefully laid out the bones and teeth and, finding he had more finger bones than he needed, happily gifted the smallest excess bones to some children as they passed his hammock. Night had fallen by the time he finished tying the bones into an armband.

The next morning, he tied the band on his right arm, and he packed the necklace into a pouch; and then he sought out Naw'ngié. Tseyo found her at the archery range talking with a group of her friends, and he waited for a lull in their conversation – as much for convenience as to give his heart time to steady itself – before he approached her.

To his relief, she smiled at him as he approached. "I see you, friend."

"And I see you, friend," he replied. He then nodded at her friends, "And you, sisters." They nodded at him with gentle smiles. He turned his attention back to Naw'ngié. "I was wondering if I could talk with you alone for a little while."

"Ah," she paused to look at her friends, seeking silent counsel. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see them nod. She looked back at him and replied, "Of course. Is there somewhere you wanted to go?"

"The river is nice this time of day," he said, "and not too far. I wouldn't want to keep you from your friends for long."

"We won't mind," Ma'kon, one of the females, said with a grin. "Naw'ngié needs to take more walks."

Naw'ngié reached out to hit her, but she was not fast enough to land a strike. The others politely held back their laughter, but he could see that they had to make an effort of it. She narrowed her eyes at them, then looked back at him and said, "I would be happy to walk along the river with you, Tseyo." She did not wait for him to lead the way, and the two headed away from the giggling females.

When they were out of earshot, he rubbed the back of his neck and said, "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"You didn't," she replied with a smile. "She's right – I should take more walks."

"I'm glad I could be the one to walk with you today."

"So am I."

They were silent for a while as they walked. They passed from the clearing around their home into the jungle, and shortly thereafter picked up a lightly traveled footpath that would take them to the river. In order to fight his nervousness, Tseyo allowed himself to admire the beauty of the jungle. The air was still heavy from the morning mist, and rays of light pierced through the canopy. Even though they were not far from _Kelutral_, the noises of the tribe's daily routine were muted by the dense foliage, replaced with the chatter of the jungle's inhabitants.

Though he took the time to appreciate the life that was all around him, it was not long before his more primal consciousness reminded him of the point of this particular excursion. He looked over his shoulder and saw Naw'ngié staring back at him with her arms crossed and a sideways grin. If it were night, he figured she would be able to see the touches of light on his skin become bright with his embarrassment. He let out a nervous laugh and said, "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"

Her grin became a smile. She uncrossed her arms and continued walking down the path towards the river. "Yes it is, acolyte," she said as she walked past him.

He took a hurried few steps to catch up to her, and then he asked, "Have you walked this way much before?"

"Sometimes," she replied. "Up until now, I've spent so much time preparing for the battle that I haven't gotten down to the river much."

"It was worth it, though."

Naw'ngié only smiled in response. She looked at him as though wanting to say something, but she paused when she saw his bone armband. "Did you make that?" He nodded. "I like it. Are they from your kills?"

"Yes," he replied. "I had planned to dye them, but I think I like them naturally."

She brushed her fingers over the band. "It's strange how fragile their bones are," she said. "I'm surprised they don't break like clay."

"I think that's why they're so eager to destroy other life and surround themselves in shields," he replied. "They're too afraid to break."

"Well, we broke them," she replied with a wry smile.

Tseyo smiled in response, but found himself with nothing further to add. A short time later, his nerves caught up to him again, which prompted him to ask, "Have you come this way with others?"

Naw'ngié chuckled and cut to the heart of his question. "If I had made a choice for a mate, Tseyo, I would not be with you right now."

He tried to mask his sigh as a laugh and said, "I'm sorry. I haven't taken a walk like this before."

She smiled and replied, "Maybe it would be easier if we stopped calling it 'walking.'"

Tseyo stopped and took a deep breath. He looked at her and said, "I would like to court you."

Naw'ngié nodded with a smile. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

He rubbed the back of his neck again and, with a sheepish grin, replied, "No, but then I've been practicing."

She put a hand on his shoulder and said, "I would like you to court me, Tseyo." He was relieved by her response, but having taken a moment too long to dwell on it – and on her touch – she said, "You know, it's a custom for the suitor to present a gift."

"I was hoping to present it to you at the river," he said with a grin.

She took his hand and said, "Then let's not wait any longer." He nodded, and the two continued on the footpath. A few moments after they resumed walking, she asked, "So, you've been practicing?"

"Yes," he said candidly. "I've wanted to ask you for a long time, but I didn't think I would be someone you'd choose."

Naw'ngié raised her brow and asked, "Because you're younger?"

He laughed. "That wasn't what I had in mind, but that's a fair reason, too."

Naw'ngié smiled and said, "A while ago, you might have had good reason to worry. But I've seen your courage, and the love you have for Eywa." She punctuated her opinion with a nod up the path.

Tseyo chuckled and replied, "I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be," she replied, quickly squeezing his hand. "I thought it was very endearing." Naw'ngié took a deep breath and continued, "Too many of the males who've asked me to 'walk' with them have thought that I'd choose them on their fighting or hunting abilities alone." She snorted and said, "I can fight. I can hunt. I don't need someone who will try to match me – I want my mate to help me see with fresh eyes."

"I can be that person," he replied.

"We'll find that out with time," she said. Soon thereafter, they arrived at the riverbank. They sat opposite of each other, and she asked, "So, my suitor, what gift do you have to offer me?"

Tseyo took the pouch from his belt and slowly, carefully withdrew the necklace; and he was relieved to see that it had not fallen apart. He held it out to her and said, "I know one day, when we are all ancestors, they'll sing songs about how you led the _kunpongu_ against the Sky People. However, I thought you should have something in our time to honor what you did."

Naw'ngié's eyes went wide, and she took in a sharp breath. "Tseyo—," her voice trailed off. A moment later, she carefully took the necklace from his hands and held it up. "Tseyo, this is beautiful," she said. "You made this?"

He nodded.

She ran her fingers over the ring at the center of the necklace. "You scavenged all this from the battlefield?"

He nodded again.

Naw'ngié was silent for a few moments, although it was painfully long for him. She broke his anxiety when she said, "I accept your gift, Tseyo. Thank you." She smiled and asked, "Would you put it on for me?"

He obliged her request, and as soon as he completed the knot at the back of her neck, she crawled over to the river's edge to inspect it in the water's reflection. "This is far too precious to wear daily," she said, "but I will wear it at every ceremony." She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. "Thank you, Tseyo."

"You're welcome," he replied with a smile.

Naw'ngié came back from the water to sit with him. Until this point, they had not spent much time alone together. He knew very little about her, and he knew that would not be acceptable if he could expect to be chosen as her mate. Tseyo was committed to making the effort.

He took her hands in his and was preparing to detail for her his vision for their life together, when farther down the riverbank he noticed a runner emerge from the jungle. The runner saw Tseyo at the same moment and hurried up the bank. "_Olo'eyktan_ has asked for everyone to gather," the runner said when he got to them. "Please return to _Kelutral_."

Tseyo and Naw'ngié looked at each other, and both sighed. Naw'ngié turned to the runner and said, "We will be there shortly, brother. Thank you for finding us."

"Have you seen any others along the river?" he asked. Both shook their heads. He ran off along the bank regardless.

"It must be urgent," Tseyo said, taking a moment to watch the runner hurry away before looking back at Naw'ngié. "We should go."

She nodded, and the two stood to leave. "There will be more time to get to know each other, Tseyo," she offered. She smiled and added, "We will have more walks."

He nodded and replied, "I look forward to them." They held hands on their way back up the path.

When he arrived home, Tseyo understood the urgency of Jakesully's call for the assembly. The _olo'eyktan_ outlined for the Omaticaya the threat that the Sky People continued to pose to them, and the plan to fight them off once and for all. The clan was stunned into silence, however, when he said that one of them was being asked to volunteer to go to the Sky People's realm in order to ensure the plan's success.

"The risks are great," the _olo'eyktan_ said at the end of his announcement. "But so is the threat. I can't demand that one of you go, and I won't try to force anybody. However, the future of our home requires this sacrifice."

The silence lingered on until someone asked, "What do you think, _Tsahik_?"

Neytiri, standing beside Jakesully, took a deep breath and said, "The Sky People's world is very different from this one. There are many dangers, and I think very few people will be able to face them."

The people began to talk quietly among themselves, although hundreds of voices talking quietly together soon filled the space with noise. Naw'ngié contributed to the noise when she turned to Tseyo and said, "There must be another way." He could only shrug.

There were more questions for Jakesully, but Tseyo found himself lost in thought again. The Sky People had already returned once in the face of defeat. He, like many, had hoped that the toll they had exacted in this last battle would have been enough to convince the Sky People to stay away; but if Jakesully believed that they were coming back regardless of their losses, if they would always come back, then perhaps that justified more drastic actions.

Tseyo was taken out of his thoughts when _olo'eyktan_ said, "If there are any volunteers, please step forward."

Nobody moved.

Jakesully sighed. Neytiri put a hand on his shoulder, and the two began to talk quietly to each other – as, once again, did the people. At that moment, Tseyo found himself overcome with disappointment in his kin. Their home was under threat, and nobody had stepped forward to answer the call for its defense. Were they too selfish in victory that they would put their own lives over those of their family? Too many lives had been lost because the people waited for the attackers to come to them, so why was nobody willing to sacrifice to ensure that nobody else had to die needlessly?

He turned to Naw'ngié, who was looking at the ground and shaking her head. A moment later, however, she took notice of him, and their eyes met. She was about to say something, but she stopped after the first syllable. Naw'ngié must have seen his intentions, because her eyes went wide. "You aren't—," she began.

Tseyo briefly lowered his head, taking a final moment to consider his course of action, and then he began to push through the crowd.

"Tseyo!" Naw'ngié called after him, and getting the attention of the people immediately around them, but he did not look back.

It was not long before the rest of the people noticed him making his way towards the altar, at which moment he no longer had to push through the crowd – it parted for him. He stood before Jakesully and said, "I will go, _olo'eyktan_."

* * *

Norm would never understand how elderly people were able to get out of bed at the most ungodly hours in the morning. More than twelve years of living with Pandora's lower gravity had taken its toll on his body – it did not help that he routinely failed to exercise, but then he was never athletic – and he felt almost twice his age.

This morning, however, he was being given an extra incentive to wake up: Someone was pushing on his shoulder. He responded to the agitation by burying his head in his pillow. "Max, if that's not you, go away." He paused and added, "Even if it is you, go away."

"Has it really been that long since we shared the bed?" Amy replied.

Norm turned over to look at her. She was sitting on the bed's edge and looked back at him with a crooked grin. He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes before he sat up and said, "It's certainly felt like that long."

"Four months in confinement will have that effect," she said.

He dodged the subject. "Should I bother to ask how you got in my suite?"

She smiled and replied, "You never removed my biometrics from the lock."

"Oh." He sighed and said, "Well, that doesn't mean it was an open invitation."

Amy's smile faded and she raised an eyebrow. "I thought you wanted to talk."

He chuckled and began to reply, "Yeah, but I didn't think—," but he could not complete his thought. Norm sighed and said, "Okay, you're right. Forgive me if I'm a bit slow, though, I'm not…"

"You're not a morning person," she said for him. "I remember."

"That's right."

She took a deep breath and said, "I'm not going to lie: I think what you did was pretty fucked up. Handing me over to Jake's posse like that—," she shook her head. "Norm, you had to know what they were planning to do to us! You've been studying them long enough."

"Actually, murder is so rare among the Na'vi that we've never had a chance…"

Her expression hardened, but her eyes spoke of an intense disinterest in his perspective as an anthropologist. "Norm," she said flatly. She did not need to say anything else. He got the hint to get back on the subject.

He sighed and replied, "Okay, yes, I had an idea of what they were going to want to do to Abe and his informant, but I figured Jake would have enough control over the clan to maintain separation between the guilty and innocent."

"Then why didn't you just leave the rest of us out of it?"

"Honestly?" She nodded. "I didn't know how innocent you were. I mean, you are – were – the military strategist of the team."

Amy looked both amused and appalled by his explanation. "So you think I would have ordered Devon to kill that girl? What planet are you on?" He raised an eyebrow, and a moment later she rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."

He let out a short laugh, but then responded more seriously, "I don't think you would have ordered Devon to commit murder. I don't think Abe did, either. However," he paused to emphasize the qualifier, "you sent the guy into the clan with a specific mission of undermining their ability to resist an occupation; and then you had no way to control him. That in and of itself was reckless."

"How is it any different than what the Avatar Program was doing?"

"We were studying Pandora and the Na'vi," he said defensively. "It wasn't until Quaritch recruited Jake that avatars posed any risk to the Na'vi."

Amy let out a short, harsh laugh. "Oh c'mon, Norm, you're not _that_ naïve. RDA wanted the avatars to make the Na'vi trustful of humanity in order to make their job easier."

"But we weren't being deceptive about it," Norm replied. "Yes, we avatars were sent there to build trust with the Na'vi. We knew it, and they knew it. Your guy was there to deceive them."

"The outcome was going to be the same."

"And would that have been better or worse for the Na'vi?"

She rubbed her forehead. "Not this conversation again." Amy sighed and said, "Look, I still think what you did was – I don't know that I would have done the same thing in your position. But I think I've come to understand your motivations. More importantly, despite what I think, or what you may have thought, you did end up coming to save us, and I haven't thanked you for that."

Norm scratched at his neck and replied, "Well, I can't honestly say that I'm sorry for what I did. But given what could have happened, or what probably would have happened, I couldn't just wash my hands of it." He looked at her and frowned, "I am sorry for what ended up happening to you. If I had known for sure that was going to happen, I might have done things differently."

Amy frowned. "Is that the best I can hope for?"

"I didn't want anything bad to happen to you," he replied, "but I can't apologize for how I felt at the time."

She rested her head against the bed's headboard and did not respond for a while. She frowned again and said, "Well, I guess there are other things to stay upset over."

Norm did not have a response for that. He looked at her and asked, "So, what about _us_?"

Amy chuckled and looked back at him. "I was set for execution and have spent the better part of four months making every possible justification to hate you. A pseudo apology isn't going to reverse all of that in an instant – hell, neither would a full, on your knees apology." She took his hand in hers and added, "But at least you're still reliably, sometimes annoyingly honest."

He squeezed her hand and said, "Give it some more time."

"And still stubborn and over-confident."

Norm stuck his tongue out at her, and she gave him the finger.

"Well, that was a mature resolution," he said with a laugh. A moment later, though, he became serious. "I assume Abe's told you about his plan." She nodded. "What do you think?"

"It's dangerous to say the least," she said. "But the more I've thought about it, the more I think it could work."

"So you're taking part?"

Amy nodded slowly. "Not without reluctance, mind you, but I see his point about throwing away lives and resources up here that could be put to better use back home." She paused and asked, "What about you?"

He nodded. "I don't think I have much of a life left up here," he said solemnly, but honestly. Jake had made it clear that the Na'vi were done babysitting the Hell's Gate residents, and his former teammates were no closer to accepting him back into their folds after he, in their opinion, became too close to Abe through his partnership with Amy.

"But if I can do something good for the Na'vi on my way out the door," he continued, "then I think it's worth the risk."

* * *

To say that Jake – or anybody for that matter – was surprised when Tseyo's stepped forward at his call for volunteers would be an understatement. Even now, Jake had a difficult time coming up with questions to ask him that would not be in the vein of, _Is this a joke_? Tseyo's volunteerism had caused such a commotion among the people that Jake had been unable to interrogate him in the atrium. Instead, Jake and his council met with Tseyo among Hometree's crown branches.

Although Tseyo was a capable fighter and hunter, he could say the same thing about most of the people. Jake knew Tseyo better as a healer, as one of Mo'at's protégés. As such, Jake deferred to Mo'at for the first question. Sitting beside Tseyo, she placed a hand on his knee and asked, "Why are you doing this, Tseyo?" Her tone was like that of a worried mother. "You have so much here."

"Nobody else stepped forward," he said. "It wasn't right."

"Then are you being serious about volunteering, or did you just want to make a point?" Nakllte, sitting on Jake's left, asked more seriously.

"I'm serious," he replied, turning to meet the warrior general's glare. "I want to defend our home. If nobody else wants to do it, then I will."

"Why?" Jake asked. "Why do you feel like you have to do this?"

Tseyo was silent for a moment while he looked at the others seated around him. He then looked at Jake and asked, "Do you all not want me to go?"

"We want to make sure your head is in the right place," he replied.

On Jake's right, Neytiri quickly added, "And your heart."

Tseyo nodded slowly, and then he responded to Jake's question. "Everything I've suffered has been because of the Sky People. If they come back, there will be more suffering. I don't want that for anybody."

"Is this about defending the people, or getting revenge?" Nakllte asked. "The two aren't the same."

"Mu'kuti is dead," Tseyo replied. "And the ones who killed my father are dead. I don't want to take revenge against all Sky People, I only want them to stay away."

"When they take you up to the sky, you will be gone for a very long time," Mo'at said. "Are you prepared to be taken beyond Eywa's embrace?"

Tseyo was quiet for a moment, his head bowed in contemplation. He looked up and asked, "How long will I be gone?"

"You'll be asleep for most of the time," Jake said. "But when you come back," he took Neytiri's hand in his, "our child will be a young and able hunter."

Tseyo's eyes briefly widened, and he returned to a contemplative silence. "When I am asleep," he asked after a while, "will I become a dreamwalker?"

"You won't dream," Jake replied. He chuckled and said, "It will be like you've had too many spirits at a ceremony." Tseyo grinned, and some of the others laughed. However, the moment of levity was short-lived, and Jake asked, "What do you envision the Sky People's world to be like?"

He shook his head slowly and said, "I haven't thought about it a lot." He paused and continued with a wry grin, "If it is like the Sky People themselves, though, I imagine it's very small. And it must be cold, since they wear so many clothes."

The council laughed; and although Jake was humored by Tseyo's gut impression, his response was more tempered. He smiled and nodded, but then he took a deep breath and said, "Their world is actually bigger than this one, and very hot. The plants are all dead, and the sky is sick. The Sky People are as numerous as raindrops in a storm, and they live in dark towers of stone – some as tall as Hometree."

Jake had tried to use images familiar to Tseyo, but he could tell by the expression on his face that the picture he painted was either too vague or too alien for him to imagine. Jake figured that the only person present who would be able to understand his description was Neytiri; and when he took a moment to look over at her, she had lowered her head and appeared as though she was mourning.

Tseyo shook his head again, like he was shaking out the images, and replied, "It doesn't matter. I am ready to do what is necessary."

Jake nodded. "Then let's decide that, now," he said. He looked over at Khutxo. "You've been quiet. Do you have anything to ask him?"

Khutxo shook his head and replied, "He stepped forward when nobody else would. That was enough for me." He put a hand on Tseyo's shoulder and said emphatically, "You have my confidence, brother."

"Nakllte?"

"No more questions, _olo'eyktan_, but I want to spend time with him on the fields before he goes."

"Is that a vote of confidence?" Nakllte took in a deep breath before he nodded.

Jake looked to Neytiri. Her head was still bowed, and he did not need to prompt her for her opinion. "This is wrong," she said. She raised her head and continued, "He has such a good heart, but his energy has been obstructed by sorrow. Sending him to your Earth will not help him heal."

"My daughter is right," Mo'at said. "Your light has not been as brilliant since Mehi'a was stolen from you – from all of us. I think it will only be more painful for you if you leave Eywa's embrace."

"Respectfully, _Tsahik_, and Great Mother, I think the opposite," Tseyo said. "If I can help prevent any more grief, if I can ensure the safety of the people, then my energy will be free again."

Mo'at nodded and replied, "Your freedom begins when you can choose your own path." She looked at Jake and said, "I believe he is ready for this journey."

Jake watched as Neytiri looked between Mo'at and Tseyo. She frowned and said, "If it's your choice, I won't oppose it." Tseyo appeared relieved, but Neytiri gave him pause when she pointed at him and continued sternly, "But if you are going to take on this responsibility, then you must be focused on nothing else. Nakllte will train your body, but you must train your heart and your energy." She took a deep breath and concluded, "I forbid you from taking a mate before you leave."

Everyone in the circle, most of all Tseyo, was taken aback by the decision. Mo'at was the first to raise her objection. "Is that necessary, daughter?"

"Warriors like to choose their mates just before great hunts or fights," she said, "or weave them into the courtship. It will be a distraction for him at a time when he must be focused on nothing else."

"The bond that warriors forge with their mates can sometimes strengthen their resolve," Khutxo said. "Respectfully, _Tsahik_, I think this is cruel."

"Tseyo will not be gone for a few days on a hunt," she said pointedly. "He will be gone long enough for a child to come of age," she raised her finger and added, "or he may not come back at all." Everyone was silent for a moment while they let that sink in. "What's cruel, Khutxo, is that we are allowing him to go to that Earth at all. It would be crueler still for a woman to be left here in mourning, not knowing what happened to him."

"Neytiri's right," Jake said after taking some time to think through her argument. "Even the Sky People understand that – the ones who come to this place are often chosen because have no family to speak of back on Earth. The time that they're away would be too much for many families to handle."

Tseyo took a deep breath and nodded. "I understand," he said. "I will devote myself to this journey. I promise you, _Tsahik_, and I thank you for being able to see what others did not."

Neytiri nodded. "Then you have my support."

Jake looked at Tseyo and said, "It's been decided. You will go with the Sky People."

* * *

"All right, let's go," Norm said to the SecOps captives. He tilted his gun up towards the lead captive's head and said, "No surprises."

"You wanna watch that thing?" the prisoner replied. "Fucking safety's off."

"That's kind of the point," Norm said.

Abe left the renegades to do the heavy lifting on the prisoner transfer. His only interest was making sure nothing happened that he could not have anticipated. Whereas Chairman Savage had been fed a plausible story to mask Abe's intentions, the crew of the ISV _Event Horizon_ had been fed complete lies. Their only job, as far as they believed, was to wait in orbit for pandorium shipments to resume.

Instead, they would be heading home well over a year ahead of schedule.

Luke, one of the renegade avatar drivers, had been a military pilot before joining RDA; however, he lacked the expertise to fly a Valkyrie. Instead, the prisoners were loaded onto the light shuttle that Abe and his team had brought over on their smaller, faster ship, the _Cybele_.

Once the prisoners were secured, Laura and a handful of the other renegades brought cartons containing the personal effects of the slain mercenaries. Their bodies had been interred in a mass grave just beyond Hell's Gate's perimeter. As they collected the bodies, the grave detail discovered the extent of the Na'vi's mutilations – hands, feet, scalps and, in some cases, tongues had been collected. In some instances, there was evidence that the people were not quite dead at the moment they were set upon.

Abe tried to put that out of his mind.

He took the copilot's seat as Luke finished the pre-flight check. Once the renegades had secured the cargo, the shuttle set off for the _Event Horizon_. Luke opened up a channel with the ISV crew once they had left Pandora's atmosphere. "_Event Horizon_, this is _Cybele One_ requesting permission to dock and offload wounded personnel."

The ship responded, "_Cybele One_, we're reading you as a class four vessel. Do you have docking ability?"

"Affirmative, or else I wouldn't be trying," Luke said. "Have your crew meet us at the bay."

"Copy that. We are sending approach vectors to your computer. Stand by."

The shuttle's autopilot took over, and the craft banked to offer Abe a view of Pandora. He recalled the first time he saw Pandora from orbit, when he marveled at its beauty. Now, however, he considered its beauty a Siren call. Hundreds had already been lured to their deaths and, despite his plans, Abe was sure more people would learn first-hand about Pandora's dangers.

Luke, on the other hand, did not seem to share his views. "It's something else, isn't it?" he said while gazing out the window.

"I think I've seen enough," Abe replied. That was the extent of their conversation.

Minutes passed before the _Event Horizon_ came into view. The autopilot continued to do most of the work up until the last few feet, when Luke completed the docking procedure. "We're locked," he said. "The gangway needs to pressurize before you can open the lock. I'll call back when we're good."

Abe nodded and moved from the cockpit into the cabin. He looked at Norm and his team and said, "I guess I don't need to tell you to get your weapons ready." They chuckled, but Abe continued. "Sean and Max, stay onboard and guard the prisoners. The rest of us will secure the crew, and then come back for you. If they try anything stupid, shoot them. The shuttle's hull is designed to withstand a collision with space junk at twenty-thousand miles per hour, so your bullets won't hurt it."

"What are we going to do?" one of the prisoners asked. "Hijack the shuttle and go back down there? Fuck you, man."

"I'm just making the point," Abe replied.

"Feel free to keep your goddamned points to yourself."

"We're pressurized," Luke called over the intercom. "You can open the hatch."

The _Event Horizon_ crew was caught by surprise when Abe and the others emerged from the gangway with guns rather than wounded soldiers. They did not need to have the situation explained to them in depth, and they did not resist as they were led to the cryobay.

While the others took care of escorting the prisoners to the cryobay and stowing the deceased soldiers' personal effects, Abe headed to the command center and activated the routines for the return voyage to Earth. He set a thirty minute delay to ensure that they could complete their work and make it back to Pandora without getting caught in the ISV's plasma wake.

Their mission accomplished, Abe prepared to retire to his quarters when he was stopped by Luke and Max. "Listen, Abe, Norm filled us in on your plan," Max said. "Most of us – well, almost all of us – are happy to stay here."

"Norm's told me as much," Abe replied. "So if that's all you wanted to tell me…"

"Luke and I have been talking," he interrupted, "and we want in."

Abe raised his eyebrows. "Really?" He crossed his arms and asked, "What made you change your minds?"

"Doctor Augustine had years of research up here that haven't made it home, and I don't really trust that sending it back on the next wormhole to RDA will get it in the hands of the right people."

"I know the head of the R-and-D department," Abe replied. "Trust me, he'll pay close attention to what goes back."

"You're asking me to trust you?"

"You're asking me to go on my mission, Doctor. I'm telling you to trust me, or you'll stay here."

Max sighed. "Look, there are more people who could benefit from this research than just RDA. Given that you're no longer an RDA suit, I figure what do you care if I send her research notes to some universities – which, of course, have no idea that these wormhole communications are going on, much less any way to tap in."

Abe considered his argument, and then he said, "So you're not really looking to be in on the mission itself, you just want a ride back to Earth?"

"Pretty much, yeah. And I'd rather go with you than take one of the ISV slow boats."

Abe chuckled and replied, "I didn't know seventy-percent the speed of light was a 'slow boat.'"

"It is compared to your ship's eighty-five percent."

He nodded. "All right, I'll take you on." He looked at Luke and asked, "And what's your story?"

"I just want to kick some ass," he replied with a shrug.

Abe grinned and said, "You know we're trying to do this with as little ass-kicking as possible, right?"

"I thought that was the goal of your last plan, and look how that turned out."

His grin faded, but only slightly. "Well, don't complain to me if you get bored along the way."

"Somehow I get the feeling that isn't going to be a problem."

"All right," Abe replied with a sigh, uncrossing his arms. "I'll brief you on your role when we get closer to the launch date. Enjoy your last month here in the meantime."

Luke nodded, and then turned to leave with Max. Abe assumed he was free at that point, but then Norm caught him in the hallway. "Jake's on the radio," he said.

"Did he say anything to you, or did he just ask for me?"

Norm snorted and curled his lips, as though Abe had asked the dumbest possible question. "Of course we talked," he replied. "But most of that doesn't concern you."

Abe gave a wry grin and asked, "Or does it concern me, but you just don't want to say it to me?" Norm's short laugh in response was enough of an answer for him. "Lead the way."

A short walk later, Abe was seated at the field radio Jake and Norm had been using for years to maintain communications in their preparation for RDA's return. He skipped pleasantries and asked, "Jake, do I need to come up with Plan B?"

"Surprisingly, no," he replied. "One of the people volunteered to go with you."

"Just one, huh?"

"Just one." Abe told himself that he should not be surprised, but he could not help be a little disappointed. He had assumed the Na'vi would jump at the chance to take the fight back to Earth, but apparently that assumption had been wrong. "But somehow I don't think you're too surprised by that."

"Not at all," Abe replied. "So, what can you tell me about him?"

"You know him."

Abe laughed. "Jake, my rolodex doesn't have too many Na'vi in it – any Na'vi, actually."

"Oh, I think you remember him. Does _Tseyo te Kllkx Muitan_ ring any bells?"

Abe could feel the blood drain from his face. "Devon's executioner?" he asked.

"We prefer to think of him as having exacted justice for his sister's murder," Jake replied.

Abe sighed. "There's no chance you could get someone else to volunteer, is there?"

"Nope. Take him or leave him – literally in this case." Abe was at a loss to respond. Yes, he needed one of the Na'vi to come back to Earth, but he did not expect that the only one who might go back would be the one with a biggest axe to grind with Abe. As though he could read his thoughts, Jake added, "He's said that this isn't a revenge mission for him. He's not out for blood."

"Bullshit, Jake," he replied. "Every Na'vi has to want revenge against RDA for what's happened to them."

"That's not how the people think," Jake replied. "They've killed the people who forced them from their home. They've killed the people who wanted to force them out a second time. Tseyo killed Mu'kuti. Those are all completed actions."

"Then why does he want to come back to Earth?"

"He wants to make sure there isn't another wave of Sky People to fight off, not to draw blood from any particular person."

Abe sighed and took a moment to rub his temples. "And what do you think, Jake?"

"Other than that this whole thing is crazy?"

"Yes, other than that."

"I think his head's in the right place," Abe replied. "But to be fair, I don't think he fully appreciates what he's getting involved with. However, I think he's capable of managing it."

"But he's not one of your best," Abe observed.

There was a pause before Jake replied, "He's capable, and he's one of my people." Abe was getting ready to ask another question when Jake said, "Abe, I'm not going to give you a lot of time to debate or think about this. You asked for one of my people, and this is who stepped forward. Accept him or don't."

"Fine," Abe replied with some hesitation. "I'll take him."


	3. Last Chance, Part I

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

"_Skxawng_!" his friend yelled. Tseyo had not been a few moments free of the Omaticaya's leadership council when Kenonyan, a long-time friend of his, approached him. Vezek, Kenonyan's recently-chosen mate, and the best friend of Tseyo's late-sister, was standing beside him with her arms crossed. Her face was expressionless, but her tail swished back and forth, betraying her anger.

"What were you thinking?" his friend demanded. "Were you thinking _at all_?"

"Yes, friend, I was thinking," Tseyo replied calmly. Even though he did not appreciate the tone his friend was taking with him, he could understand his anger; and Tseyo had no desire to agitate his, or Vezek's, emotions any further. He knew they cared deeply for him. Both of them had journeyed with him to search for Mehi'a when she went missing, and both were there to mourn with him when he discovered her body.

"Then tell me what you were thinking," Kenonyan demanded again. "Tell me what could have possibly made you step forward to take on this responsibility."

"I was thinking about the tribe, about our family."

"Our family is here, Tseyo," he said. "It's not in the Sky People's realm. What would make you want to leave it? Have we not been good friends to you?"

"Of course you've been good friends," Tseyo replied. "My decision had nothing to do with our relationship."

"It must not have, or else why would you want to leave?"

"That isn't fair, Kenonyan."

He raised his brow. "And what would be fair?"

"If you would accept that I made this decision, and support me as my friend."

Kenonyan shook his head. "I can't support something I don't understand, Tseyo," his tone beginning to calm. "This is not like you at all. The Tseyo I know, whom I grew up with, doesn't foolishly ride out on _ikran_ to fight. The Tseyo I see in front of me, however, might as well be an alien."

Tseyo was about to respond when Vezek asked, "Is this about Mehi'a?"

He narrowed his eyes at her and replied, "So what if it is?"

"Because Mehi'a would think you are _skxawng_, too," she replied. If any other person in the tribe had presumed to talk to him about what Mehi'a would or would not have thought, his response would have been delivered through his fists. However, given the close relationship Vezek had with her, he let her continue. "She would be horrified that you would think to leave your friends and family to live with the Sky People."

"I'm not going to live with them!" he replied, upset and horrified by the suggestion. "I am going to keep them from coming back here. Do you want your children to live under the threat of another attack? You heard _olo'eyktan_: They're coming back in numbers we can't defeat."

"He doesn't know that," she said. "That's only what _T'ngyute_ told him, and he's not trustworthy."

"Vezek's right," Kenonyan said with a firm nod. "The only reason the demons came here is because they couldn't solve their problems, and now he wants to make you – and us – part of those problems. You shouldn't trust him."

"So I shouldn't help them solve their problems, either?"

"I didn't know you understood the Sky People's ways well enough to be of any help," Vezek said contemptuously.

Tseyo was growing tired of their accusations. "Maybe it will help them to have fresh eyes," he responded. "Like it would help you two to better see the threat we face."

Both of them looked as insulted as he had hoped they would have been. "So what would the Great Tseyo do, given his ability to see what nobody else can?" Vezek replied. "Would he send all of our warriors to the sky?"

He could feel his tail swishing as anger built up inside him. "If it would keep the Sky People there, yes I would!"

"Then get on your _ikran_ and fly away!" she said with a hiss. "Fly away from the people who love you. Go, alone, and be the great leader who solves all the Sky People's problems. Maybe you love _us_ so much that you will stay and live with _them_ to make sure they have no more problems." Vezek pushed past him and continued farther down _Kelutral_.

Tseyo looked at Kenonyan with his eyes narrowed, waiting for his parting insult. He shook his head and said, "I hope you come to your senses, friend. I will be waiting for you to." With that, he followed after Vezek.

He looked around and saw that several people had stopped their activities to listen in on the conversation – not that they had to strain their ears any to do so. Some were shaking their heads, while others appeared to look sympathetic. To whom those few might have been sympathetic, however, he could not tell. Tseyo swished his tail, let out an ejective spat, and continued on his way to find Naw'ngié.

She was sitting underneath a sapling near the edge of where the field surrounding _Kelutral_ ended and the jungle began. He took a deep breath before he approached her. When he was just a few steps away, he saw her ears twitch as she picked up on his footfalls; but she did not turn to look at him.

Tseyo took a seat next to her, but Naw'ngié still did not look at him. She acknowledged his presence, however, by asking, "Did they accept you?"

He nodded. "They did."

She sighed and replied, "I told you I wasn't interested in a man who wants to impress me with his courage."

He was surprised by the accusation. "That – I didn't volunteer to try to impress you, Naw'ngié."

"Then what came over you?" she asked, finally turning to look at him. She was still wearing the necklace he presented to her that morning. "You ask me to accept your courtship, and then before we have a chance to learn about each other, you volunteer to attack the Sky People's home."

Tseyo looked down and said, "I guess a part of me thought that, as long as the Sky People threaten our home—," he sighed and shook his head. Too many thoughts were clouding his mind; too many emotions were flowing through his heart. After he took a moment to collect himself, he continued, "I want to be happy, Naw'ngié. I don't want my life and my energy to be at the mercy of those cold, uncaring demons."

Naw'ngié frowned and put a hand on his shoulder. "You won't find happiness if you ignore the people who love you, or if you only think about the next fight. We have all suffered because of the Sky People, Tseyo, but we carry on in our ancestors' traditions anyway. Are we not happy?"

He chuckled and said, "You also told me you wanted someone who could help you see with fresh eyes. It seems like your sight is fine."

"Thank you," she replied with a faint smile. "But that isn't anything we weren't taught in the songs as children – and you of all people should know them."

He sighed again and said, "I know. But the people shouldn't feel compelled to be happy just because the Sky People want to see us be miserable. The people should be happy because they live in good times."

"You underestimate the people's resolve, Tseyo," she replied.

"But am I wrong?"

Naw'ngié hesitated before she replied, "No. The people should be free from the Sky People's terror, but I worry that this path will lead us to consequences we can't see."

Tseyo frowned and said, "I have already learned about one consequence."

"Oh?"

He nodded. "_Tsahik_ has commanded me to not take a mate."

Naw'ngié's hand slowly fell from his shoulder. Her eyes first went wide, and then she turned away from him. "Oh."

They sat beside each other without saying a word while the shadows grew darker in the day's fading light. He could only guess as to what she was thinking, but he was trying too hard to not appear grief-stricken in front of her.

Before night fell, Naw'ngié stood and began to untie the necklace. It was customary at the end of a courtship, in those few instances where prospective lovers found each other incompatible, that the two people return the gifts to each other. However, Tseyo stood and said, "No, Naw'ngié, I want you to keep that."

"I can't."

"I made that to honor your leadership," he insisted. "Please keep it – if not as a reminder of what I wanted for us, then of what you did for the people."

Naw'ngié hesitated, but then she nodded and said, "All right, Tseyo. I will keep your gift." She took a step close to him and put her hands on his heart. "You have a good heart. I hope you find what you need to set it free again."

"I do, too."

Naw'ngié offered him a smile, and then kissed him on his cheek. She walked away without another word.

Tseyo watched her go back inside _Kelutral_, and then he sat down, buried his head in his hands, and wept.

* * *

Abe's headache was coming back. "I don't know any other way to explain this," he said, his frustration beginning to boil over. "If Tseyo is going to go on this mission, he has to be here to prepare for the realities of operating on Earth."

"He only has a few weeks before he's taken away from the only world he's ever known," Norm replied. Abe gathered from his tone that he was becoming just as frustrated with the direction of their conversation. "He should be spending it among his friends and family."

He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. "He volunteered for this, Norm. I'm not sympathetic."

"You agree that he has to be mentally prepared for this mission, right?"

"Of course."

"That's not going to happen if he spends weeks cooped up here beforehand."

"So your solution is to let him live his idyllic life for one more month, and then we swoop in, yank him out of his home, and throw him into the relative Hell that is Earth?" Abe snorted. "Somehow I think that will have deeper ramifications than locking him up here, as you imagine it, to acclimate."

"He's not going to learn properly if he's uncomfortable," Norm replied.

"It's not just about learning, Norm," Abe said. "This is not a reverse Avatar Program with volumes of training manuals to memorize. This is about building trust with his teammates, and he can't do that sitting in a tree while his team sits here."

"I doubt he's going to trust any of us, no matter how much time he spends with us," Norm said with a short laugh. "But if you're worried about whether or not he'll _listen_ to us, then he doesn't need to be here for that."

"Just because Jake tells him to isn't a good enough assurance for me," Abe said. "I don't care if you think they have some obscene reverence for him as their leader. As soon as Tseyo's out of his control, he could do whatever he damn well pleases."

Norm shook his head and said, "First of all, you underestimate the deference they have for their _olo'eyktan_s. Second of all, that's not what I had in mind."

Abe crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "I'm listening."

"Send me to teach him."

He paused to think about Norm's request, and then he had a moment of realization. He grinned and said to Norm, "That's not why you want to go over there."

Norm paused and looked as though he had misheard him. He leaned forward and asked, "Excuse me?"

"I mean, yes, I'm sure you do want to be the one who builds up a relationship with Tseyo, but that's more of an opportunity than a reason."

"I have no idea what you're getting at," Norm replied. "But I'm not sure I like it."

"C'mon, Norm. You want to go because this is your last chance to realize your dream of becoming one of the Na'vi."

Norm was silent for a moment, and then he began laughing. He leaned back in his chair and said, "You really must have gone crazy in that cell, Abe, because I don't know where you got that impression."

Abe activated his worktablet. "I'm sure you've already figured out that I dug through your personnel file."

He nodded. "I'd expect no less, and I'm sure you saw the part where I passed my psych evaluations."

Abe brushed off the slight insult and continued, "Did you know that all your video logs automatically linked to your personnel file? It was so we could make sure you guys weren't using your logs to plot against us." He let out a short laugh and continued, "You and the others did a good job erasing them from the research server – I guess you didn't want us using your collective wisdom against the Na'vi – but you did much less of a good job on your personnel files."

Norm's face went ashen. "Abe, I got it. We don't…"

"Of course we do," Abe said, interrupting him as he finished pulling up the years-old file. "This is good stuff."

"Abe, I get it. You're…"

Norm was interrupted by his own, albeit younger, voice. "Video log, day three in the field," the years-old Norm said. Abe sat back, still grinning, and placed the tablet on a stand in order to turn it into a kind of television. He turned it at an angle on his desk so Norm could watch.

* * *

Norm looked into the camera and began his report. "We've continued to collect samples of the native flora, emphasizing the root structures." Unfortunately, he could not get past one particular annoyance to begin in earnest. "Our efforts haven't been helped, however, by our so-called security detail, who's too busy chasing tail to pay much attention to the importance of our research."

Grace Augustine replied from her workstation, "He's been accepted into their clan. That in and of itself opens up plenty of research opportunities."

"Bullshit!" Norm said. "He's not his brother, Doctor. He doesn't care about the Na'vi. He hasn't studied their language, their culture, their anything. The only thing he's researching is how to get close to Neytiri."

"And we'll let Neytiri give him a hard lesson if he tries to apply his testosterone-funded research," Grace replied. "Rather than stew over the fact that our resident Jarhead was accepted into the Na'vi, do your job as an anthropologist and try to think about why he got accepted."

"I can't even _begin_ to figure that out," he said. "Did they just feel sorry for him?"

"The Na'vi are known for their capacity to have empathy for others," she said, still without looking up from her work. "Start there."

Norm turned to look at her and replied, "You can't possibly believe that's the reason why."

"Jesus Christ," Grace said. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her lab coat pocket and grabbed a stick. "Here's what I know," she said while she searched for her lighter. "I know that there are twenty other avatar drivers here who, for all their knowledge of the Na'vi, were not accepted into the tribe. Some of these guys have been with me since the school was open. They made friends among the Na'vi, but when things soured, they were kicked out with me."

She paused to light her cigarette. "Because for all the goodwill we built up, we just weren't part of the tribe. Now, for whatever reason, they've let Jake in; and, yes, it may well be because he has half the brains of his brother."

"That's generous," he said while she took a drag.

Grace exhaled a large puff of smoke. "Who cares? Maybe they think he's enough of a blank slate that they can turn him into an effective ambassador between us and them."

"But I'm already ready to be an ambassador!"

"Then you know what?" Grace took another long drag. "I'm going to give you permission that, whenever you want, you can wander off with your avatar and stroll into their Hometree. Impress them with your Na'vi, and wax poetic on their culture. Maybe they'll like you enough to shoot you in the head instead of leaving you to suffer with a gut shot – which, by the way, they've done to avatars before. How do you think you got a spot up here?"

Norm took a deep breath. "How are we supposed to study them if we can't get close to them?"

She pointed the cigarette at him and said, "Right there is your problem, Norm. You think they _want_ us poking around their home and taking notes." She leaned in and continued, "But you know what? They don't want us here at all, much less in their home."

"So how'd you get material for your book?"

"I didn't 'get' it," she said. "They let me have it once they trusted me, and it took a damned long time to earn that trust. You sure as shit weren't going to earn it with less than a week on the ground."

"Which brings us back to the original question: Why did they let Jake in so quickly?"

"And if you want to spend your free time figuring it out," Grace replied, "I'm sure you'll end up contributing much to our understanding of the Na'vi. In the meantime – on my time – quit sulking about not being their newest, bestest friend, and finish your field report."

* * *

Abe stopped the video. "You know, Norm, I've often wondered why you became an anthropologist. I mean, that has got to be the worst possible profession on Earth these days – what with every ancient, tribal culture you could want to study having long since been wiped out."

Norm, who appeared more than a little upset by his personal history lesson, crossed his arms and said, "Cultural anthropology has plenty of modern applications. We don't all need to be out looking for the last, indigenous tribe of the Amazon."

"Or the remains thereof," Abe quipped. "And yet, you didn't start your career in human studies, you went head-first into Na'vi studies."

"It's an emergent field," Norm replied. "You get more respect being on the cutting edge of science than joining the crowd. Besides, what we learn about the Na'vi could be applied to help humanity."

"If the Na'vi were a spacefaring society of twenty billion, sure," Abe said. "But they're not."

"I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again: You're the one who showed up going on about Native Americans and all that we could learn from them. Why are you being so dismissive of the Na'vi?"

Abe leaned forward and replied, "No, I was talking about the politics of colonists' interactions with the Native Americans and what we could learn from those interactions to leverage our advantage. I was never suggesting that we would have been better off if we all adopted their practices." He pointed at Norm and continued, "You, on the other hand, don't just want to learn from the Na'vi. You want to settle down with them."

"That's not true," Norm said, shifting in his chair.

"Norm, you're a shitty liar." Abe held up his hands and sat back in his chair. "I'm not judging you, but I want you to tell it like it is."

Norm was silent for a while, and then he said, "Are you going to keep trying to drag Tseyo here, or is he going to get one last month with his people?"

Abe sighed at his passive refusal and said, "All right, if you want to go work with Tseyo on his turf, that's fine by me. But stay focused on preparing him, and don't get caught up in your fantasies of becoming one of the Na'vi. Remember, you're leaving here, too."

* * *

The last time Norm rode a direhorse, it was on his way into battle. He was able to vividly recall how natural it felt to bond with the horse, and the rush of adrenaline that came with facing down RDA's army. He also still vividly recalled the terror he felt when the Na'vi force disintegrated, and the pain of being shot.

Today, though, Jake was the one directing the direhorse back to the Omaticaya's home. Jake, now a confident rider, had the direhorse galloping through the jungle along what could barely be considered a trail. Norm was desperately clinging to him as a passenger, hoping not to fall off the giant animal – or, worse, that his exopack mask would be shaken loose – along the way.

In order to prevent scaring the Na'vi into thinking RDA was launching a surprise attack, Norm agreed to be dropped off by shuttle some miles away from Hometree; and Jake carried him the rest of the way.

"We're almost there," Jake said. "Just another couple of minutes."

"Don't feel like you have to hurry," Norm replied. "I'm enjoying the ride."

Jake laughed. "Yeah, I can tell by the way you're trying to squeeze my guts out."

As they got nearer to Hometree, other direhorse riders came to Jake's side. One of them looked at Norm, but asked Jake in his native tongue, "_Olo'eyktan_, may I ask what you're doing bringing one of them into our home?" His tone of voice was as scornful as a Na'vi warrior could reasonably get away with in addressing his leader.

"He is going to be a teacher for Tseyo," Jake replied. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"If you think it's best, then no." By the way the warrior glared at Norm before he and the other hunters rode ahead of Jake, Norm was less than convinced of his sincerity.

Still speaking in Na'vi, Jake said, "They aren't going to give you a hard time – not since you're my guest – but don't expect them to welcome you with open arms."

"I hadn't thought otherwise," Norm replied. When they finally arrived at the clan's home, Norm's reception was cooler than Jake had let on. Most of the Na'vi who were nearby gave him disdainful looks before they hurried away.

Jake expertly dismounted the horse and set about untying Norm's duffel from its back; whereas Norm took what felt like a leap of faith from its back, and he counted himself lucky that he only stumbled on the landing instead of falling on his face.

A group of children approached and, like the warrior earlier, but with far less tact, one of the young males asked, "_Olo'eyktan_, why have you brought this demon here?"

"He's not a demon, Nawiz," Jake said. "He's a friend of mine."

"If he's your friend, why has he never been here before?"

One of the other children hit Nawiz on the shoulder and said, "You idiot, he's the one who begged for the other demons to be saved from the posts."

Jake finished untying Norm's duffel and slung it over his shoulder. "I already said, children, he's not a demon. I've asked him to come here in order to be a teacher for Tseyo."

Another of the children, a female, stepped up to Norm and looked squarely in his eyes. Norm had to take a moment to remind himself that, despite her height, she was just a child. "Why are you taking Tseyo away from us?" she asked. "We like him."

"He doesn't know what you're saying, Sìlaun," Nawiz said with a scoff. "Don't bother talking to him."

Norm took a deep breath and said, much to the children's surprise, "I understand her, Nawiz. And I'm not here to take Tseyo away, I'm here to teach him what he needs to know in order to come home to you safely."

Sìlaun was the first to recover from the shock and said. "He's still going away. It's wrong."

"It was his choice," Jake said. "Norm is here to help him."

"Tseyo doesn't need his help, _olo'eyktan_," Nawiz said. "He's one of the people. He can't learn anything from _him_."

"Children, I won't say this again." Jake's child was still weeks away from being born, but Norm was impressed that he already had his fatherly tone mastered – and he was using it to clear effect in this situation. "He is my friend, and I've brought him here as my guest. If you aren't going to be nice to him, then leave him alone."

They looked at each other, quietly weighing Jake's order, and then walked away without saying another word.

Jake sighed and said flatly, "Welcome to our home."

Norm waved him off. "It's fine," he said. "Again, I didn't expect to be greeted warmly." He walked with Jake first to the stable to return the direhorse, and then into Hometree itself. He occasionally paused to crane his head skyward and admire the tree's size, or to look about at the many activities the Na'vi were engaged in. Overshadowing his awe and curiosity, however, Norm was keenly aware of the many stares being directed his way, although he did his best to not acknowledge them.

He was relieved to find, though, that there was at least one friendly face, other than Jake's. Shortly after stepping into Hometree's atrium, Neytiri approached him with a smile. "I see you, Norm."

"I see you, Neytiri," he replied with a smile. "Thank you for allowing me to be here."

"Thank you for coming," she said. "I know Tseyo will benefit from your guidance."

"I'll do my best." He nodded towards stomach and asked, "How are you feeling?"

Her smile broadened, and she put her hands on her belly. "I am feeling well, and very excited," she replied. "Jake and I have waited a very long time for our first child."

"I'm sure you'll be a great mother, and Jake a great father."

Neytiri's nodded and looked at Jake. "I think he will be a good father, too, but he worries too much."

Norm chuckled and offered, "Well, it's his first child. I'm sure he'll be less nervous with the next one."

Jake thwacked Norm's head with his tail, prompting Neytiri to laugh. When she caught a breath, she said, "I will let Jake get you familiar with our home, before we make him more uncomfortable. Be well, Norm."

"And you, too, Neytiri." She nodded, and then went off to speak with other people. When she was gone, Norm rubbed his head and said to Jake, "That hurt!"

"Sorry," he said, although Norm knew he could not possibly mean it. "I'm not quite to the point of thinking about the next few kids."

"Yeah, well, come up with a better way to say it next time."

Jake chuckled and replied, "I'll work on it. In the meantime, let's get you and Tseyo properly introduced."

Although Jake was more than able to ascend the winding branches that allowed the Na'vi to move about Hometree, Norm struggled to keep up. Eventually – and with effort – he came to a hammock, occupied by a single Na'vi. He was sitting in the hammock with his eyes closed, obviously in a state of meditation.

"Tseyo, my friend, your teacher, Norm, is here to meet you."

Tseyo opened his eyes and nodded at Jake before turning to look at Norm. "Welcome to our home, teacher," he said with little enthusiasm.

"I'm happy to be here," he replied. He was about to give Tseyo permission to call him by his name, but he caught himself – Tseyo would be impersonal and deferential until they built up a rapport. He did not want to get ahead of that relationship developing on its own.

Jake pointed at an empty hammock a few yards from Tseyo's. "Norm, you'll be staying there. I'll give you a little while to get your stuff unpacked, get to know Tseyo a little better, and then I want to see you two outside. We need to go over Tseyo's training in detail."

"I got it, Jake. We'll see you shortly." Jake nodded, handed Norm his duffel, and then descended the branches for Hometree's floor.

Norm carefully got into his hammock, almost losing his balance once in. He wasted little time to check on the equipment he brought with him, and he was relieved to see that the items had survived the bumpy ride to Hometree. Once again, however, he was too aware that he was being watched. He looked up from his duffel and quickly scanned the hammocks around him – and almost all of them had wary eyes looking back down at him.

Tseyo sighed and said, "Don't mind them. You're an unusual guest, but they will learn to accept you."

"Thank you, Tseyo." He paused before asking, "How have they been treating you?"

He shrugged. "Some have been very upset, and some have been very supportive. There are many people here with many emotions."

Norm nodded. "Have you had any doubts?"

Tseyo shook his head. "I'm ready, teacher," he said, and Norm was struck by how calm he sounded.

"You're willing, anyway," Norm replied. "I expect we'll find out how ready you are soon enough."


	4. Last Chance, Part II

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

Nakllte stood over Tseyo as he struggled to his feet. "A child would get up before you," the old warrior said. "I barely hit you."

Tseyo held his bruising side and replied, "That wasn't 'barely'…" Nakllte interrupted him with a punch to his stomach, causing him to double over.

"I didn't say the match was over, Tseyo," he lectured. "If you're going to stand up to an enemy, then be prepared to fight."

Norm stood a few yards away and watched the brutal lesson play out, as round after round ended with Tseyo either on his back or on his knees and gasping for air. Morning turned into afternoon, and the shadows of the surrounding jungle retreated from the small meadow. Norm quickly missed the shade, even though the jungle's humidity had hardly made the morning's shadows a refuge from the heat.

Nakllte walked over to Norm while his student tried to catch his breath after yet another hard lesson. "This isn't working," he said candidly. "I don't think Tseyo has ever had to react to this kind of aggression."

"I'd guess that you're right," he replied. "But the only thing you're leaving out is that humans are more likely to kick him when he's down than help him up."

Nakllte shook his head and said, "I can't bring myself to do that. He's freezing up enough as it is." He sighed and added, "Besides, do you really think humans are going to fight him like this?"

Norm took a moment to reflect on the very obvious physical advantages the Na'vi had over humans, which needed no more emphasis than the fact that Norm had developed a very painful kink in his neck from having to keep looking up at his hosts. "No," he said, "but that's not the point. It's important for him to train his mind for this kind of aggressive behavior."

Nakllte nodded and looked over his shoulder as Tseyo finally got to his feet. "He has a long way to go, though." He looked back at Norm and said, "I can tell already that I need more time to train him."

"I can't give you more time," he replied. "You're doing a good job, just stay on him."

He snorted and said with a wry grin, "Don't take offense, Norm, but I don't need a Sky Person to tell me that I'm doing a good job training Na'vi warriors. I've been doing it for a long time."

Norm held up his hands to indicate that no offense was taken. He and Nakllte had built up something of a professional rapport, as he was one of the principal contacts when Norm was supplying the Na'vi with weapons. They were not friends, but they had found a measure of respect for each other.

Nakllte looked back over his shoulder and shouted at Tseyo, "We're done for now. I will come for you when it's time to resume your training."

Tseyo nodded.

"Norm will be your teacher until I return," Nakllte added, and then he walked back towards Hometree.

Once Nakllte was out of eyesight, Tseyo sat down, and then a moment later stretched out on his back. He groaned and asked, "How many more days will be like this, teacher?"

"All of them," Norm said as he walked over with his backpack. "Earth is not a place for the timid. You're going to have to be more aggressive, Tseyo, because neither Nakllte nor the people we're fighting will get any more passive."

Tseyo sighed and sat upright. "I've watched him train my brothers and sisters to be hunters and warriors, and he never laid a hand on them more than a few times. I didn't expect him to be this violent."

"Your brothers and sisters aren't going where you are."

Norm pulled out his teaching instruments. While Nakllte had been given the task of preparing Tseyo's body for the mission, Norm had to do his best to acclimate him to the realities of Earth. Jake had been clear that every moment Tseyo was awake, he had to be learning.

Norm activated his tablet. Before he taught anything new, he wanted to be sure Tseyo was retaining his previous lessons. He called up one of the earlier videos he showed to Tseyo – a car chase – and maximized the volume, certainly scaring off any animals that might have been scouting them from along the clearing's perimeter.

He almost scared Tseyo off as well; for as soon as the sound of the sirens blared, Tseyo nearly jumped up from his sitting position. "What is this noise?" Norm asked.

Tseyo hesitated before he answered with the English word, "_Siren_."

Norm nodded. "Does it come from an animal or a _machine_?"

"_Machine_."

"What does it mean?"

"It means there's danger nearby."

Norm nodded again. He repeated the exercise for the better part of the next hour, testing Tseyo on his ability to associate common human sounds and images, and then his ability to place them in context.

His next lesson began with a montage of city scenes, and Norm lectured about the many differences between life in a human city and the life which Tseyo had enjoyed. To Tseyo's credit, he did not complain about the amount of information being thrown his way. Much to the contrary, he stayed engaged and asked many questions about human culture.

Eventually, Norm became aware of his own hunger; and he figured Tseyo had to be eager for a break. He took a break from the lesson to take a pre-pasted field ration from his backpack. Abe had a surplus of rations after the casualties his team suffered; and since Norm would not have a chance to remove his exopack, he had to give up the natural delicacies he had become accustomed to eating in his years following RDA's exile.

The field rations that were used by the military well into the late twenty-first century had mostly been phased out. As troops on deployment were ever more likely to be wearing exopacks on a regular basis as the environment deteriorated, they did not have the time to "prepare" a multicourse meal that those early rations tried to mimic. Instead, field rations were reengineered to be more in line with those used by early-era, high-altitude pilots and astronauts: pasted meals that could be ingested with straws through the soldiers' masks.

Also unlike the early rations – or, as some veterans might say if they could speak from beyond the grave, just like those early rations – there were too few natural ingredients that Norm had to be worried about the rations spoiling as they sat in his backpack, several days removed from Hell's Kitchen's refrigerators. The packet cover said he was about to eat applesauce and pork. The listed ingredients, however, called into question whether or not there was even a pork byproduct in the meal's contents.

Norm sighed and removed tubing that was attached to the packaging, and then he crushed the bag in order to activate the chemical heating process. If he could not have genuine food, he could at least have a warm meal. A moment later he affixed the tube to a valve on the food package, and then worked the tube through an opening near the seal of his exopack mask.

The food was not unpalatable, but it was tasteless; and that meant Norm was too aware of its unpleasant texture. As he tried to put the unpleasant feeling of the paste out of his mind, he noticed that Tseyo's bemused expression. "Is that how all Sky People eat?" he asked.

"Only when we're outside," he replied. Tseyo shook his head and chuckled, although Norm could not tell if it was in amusement at the ridiculously complicated process, or just as a commentary on human peculiarities.

Whatever the case, Norm had an unpleasant surprise for Tseyo.

"And since you're going to get your own mask for Earth's air," he said, "you aren't going to be able to eat the food you're familiar with." He reached back into his pack and tossed Tseyo a field ration. "You should start getting used to these."

Tseyo looked like Nakllte had hit him in the stomach again, and Norm could not blame him. He was not looking forward to bearing witness to how the field ration was received by Tseyo's digestive system. However, the sooner Tseyo's body became used to human "delicacies," the better off he would be on Earth. Norm walked Tseyo through the steps needed to use the ration, and waited for his reaction.

It was about as he expected.

Tseyo spit out the paste– allegedly chicken and noodles – as soon as it touched his tongue, and he hastily set the ration aside. "That's disgusting!" he shouted. "That wasn't food, that was—," he stopped, shook his head, and spit again. He continued, "I don't want to know what that was, but it was not food. Poison, maybe."

"Unfortunately, Tseyo, that was food," Norm said, doing his best to remain serious and not laugh at Tseyo's reaction. "And it's the only food I brought with me. It's also going to be the only food you have on Earth. So if you want to eat—," he left the rest of the sentence unspoken and nodded at the discarded field ration.

Norm worried that, perhaps, the food was somehow poisonous to Tseyo, and he was being too dismissive of his complaint. But he also knew that did not change the fact that Tseyo would not be able to eat much else on Earth; and if he was unable to digest the field ration, then they would have to remove him from the mission.

They shared a tense few moments of silence, and then Tseyo sighed, picked up the ration, and sucked up the rest of the contents. He grimaced throughout the meal, like a child being forced to take medicine against his will.

"Maybe it just takes a while to get used to," Tseyo offered when he was done. "There were many foods I didn't like as a child."

Norm chuckled and said, "I hate to say it, but I don't think these get any better the more you have them."

Tseyo shook his head. "How are you Sky People still alive?" he asked. "If your Earth is as sick as this food tastes, as the visions you've shown me, it seems like you will all die."

"We're stubborn, Tseyo," he replied with far less levity than he had a moment earlier. "We aren't going to give up on the chance that the future will be better than today."

"You're too stubborn to die, but too stubborn to change your ways," he said. "Is that why you want others to accept your ways, so you can go on living without acting differently?"

Norm started to shake his head, but something in him forced him into a moment of reflection. He thought about the cumulative of his life's experiences before coming to Pandora. He sighed and lowered his head, then nodded. "Most of us, yes, would rather have others conform to their ways than change, but not all of us."

"What about you?" Tseyo asked.

Norm was surprised by the question, and almost insulted. "Of course I want to change the way we behave. It's why I came here in the first place," he replied. "Why would you ask that?"

Tseyo lowered his head and took a deep breath. "I think, sometimes, you are trying to change me instead of teach me." Norm was about to respond, but he continued, "A few nights ago, I dreamed about what it will be like when I come home. The people didn't recognize me, though. They said I was too much like one of you, so they wouldn't let me back." Tseyo wiped his eyes before he concluded, "It's not been like other dreams that have gone away with time – it has stayed with me. It feels like a sign from Eywa."

"That sounds like a bad dream," Norm replied. "But I'm not trying to change you, Tseyo, I'm trying to prepare you."

He looked up and asked, "Will they try to change me on your Earth?"

"Maybe," Norm said candidly, "if you let them make that choice for you."

Tseyo was silent for a while, his head lowered in contemplation, but then he nodded and said, "Thank you, Norm."

* * *

Jake could not help but laugh. "I remember the first time I had a 'meal rejected by the enemy,'" he said. "I think my whole platoon got sick that first time around – and it's not like any of us had been living high on steak dinners before signing up."

He had too many responsibilities as the Omaticaya's leader to be involved in every minute of Tseyo's training, even though his absence from it often gave him occasion to worry. Instead, he met with Norm and Nakllte every few nights at his hammock in order to get their reports.

"It was definitely a shock to his system," Norm replied with a chuckle. "But he's stopped, ah, violently rejecting them, so I guess that's a good sign."

Nakllte cracked a smile and said, "I think they're responsible for making him a more aggressive fighter."

Jake could have put forward anecdotal evidence in support of his warrior general's theory, but he decided to spare his companions those details. "How's his focus?" Neytiri asked. "Has he expressed any second thoughts?"

Norm and Nakllte exchanged a quick glance, but they both shook their heads. "Every warrior has moments of doubt, _Tsahik_," Nakllte responded. "If Tseyo has had anything worse than those, he hasn't shown it."

"We've thrown a lot at him in a short period of time," Norm added. "On the whole, I think he's taken it better than I had expected. However, I think we should give him a break before we find out where his limit is."

Nakllte nodded. "I don't think we're asking him to do too much, but if he tries to train while he's exhausted, he's more likely to injure himself. Maybe in a few days, we'll give him some rest."

Jake nodded. Even his basic training had "core values" days that offered a slight respite from the otherwise intense physical conditioning – even if they were far from anything like days off. "Keep an eye on him," he said. "If it looks like he needs a break sooner, don't hesitate to give it to him. Just don't make it a habit." They nodded in acknowledgment, and he continued, "I'm sure you're doing a good job with him, but let me know if there are any problems." That was their usual cue to leave, and they began to stand when Jake turned to Norm and said, "Stay for a moment."

He did as asked and, once Nakllte had gone from earshot, Norm asked, "What's up?"

"It's nothing serious," Jake said. "I just want to know how you're settling in."

Norm grinned and replied, "I think I'd be doing better if I didn't feel like a child around here, but there's not much I can do about that." He paused to rub the back of his neck. "Besides, I've been spending most – well, all – of my time with Tseyo, so I haven't seen as much of the people as I would otherwise like to."

"The people aren't giving you trouble, are they?" Neytiri asked.

He shook his head. "They've kept their distance."

She frowned. "You are a friend of the people. They shouldn't pretend like you're not here."

"It's okay, Neytiri," he replied. "Other than the battle with Quaritch, I never got close to the people to really be their friend." He paused and added, "Maybe that's for the better too, since I'm going to be going back to Earth."

"Have you thought about coming back?" Jake asked.

Norm laughed. "Jake, regardless of whether or not we're successful on Earth, I really, really doubt I'm going to have the chance to come back here."

He knew it was true, but he still felt compelled to ask. The thought of being removed from one of his closest friends, and his last physical connection to his brother, for the rest of his life often gave him an uneasy moment of pause. Jake frowned and said, "I wish we could have saved your avatar."

Norm just nodded.

"Maybe the same day Tseyo is given his rest, you will spend more time among the people," Neytiri offered.

"Maybe," Norm replied. "I just don't want to get in people's way and upset the peace."

"If these are your last days with us, you should have the chance to enjoy them," she said with a smile. "I want you to be happy here. I also think you have more friends here than you think."

Norm smiled and said, "Trust me, Neytiri, I'm happy to be here, even if it is only for a short time." He stood and said, "But I'll be happier to get some sleep."

"Have a good night, Norm," Jake said with a smile. Norm gave him a thumbs-up, and then made his way down the branches to his hammock.

Neytiri shook her head once he was out of sight and said, "He shouldn't feel alone, here."

"I don't think he feels alone," Jake replied, "just out of place. How could he not?"

"Is that how you felt when you first came to us?"

Jake laughed and said, "Yes, but then I had a much colder welcoming than he did." He grinned at her and said, "And my teacher was a bit feistier than Tseyo's."

Neytiri poked him between his ribs and replied, "But she was a good teacher, given the student."

He brushed her cheek and said, "She was the best." He leaned forward and kissed her, and she brought her arms around him. They lay down together, and he put a hand on her stomach. "She'll be a good teacher for our children, too."

She rested her hands on top of his and laid her head on his shoulder. "Their father will also be a good teacher," she said.

He kissed her forehead and replied, "I'm looking forward to it."

* * *

Norm woke up earlier than expected. He looked over at Tseyo's hammock and saw that he was still fast asleep. At the end of his training yesterday, he and Nakllte informed him that he was going to have the day off. Tseyo tried to maintain a disciplined, muted response to the news, but then Norm let him know that it meant he could eat regular food. His reaction was then more animated.

He rummaged through his duffel for a field ration that most closely approximated breakfast – settling for sausage with Italian rice – and, after suffering through it, took a camera from his bag and made his way to Hometree's floor. Even though he had only been at Hometree for a few weeks, Norm had become better at navigating the branchworks that spiraled throughout the tree's interior.

Most of the clan was already awake, and the people were going about their usual routines. Warriors gathered in small groups to tinker with their weapons and trade stories of bravery – either of their own or of their ancestors. Hunters went through final checks of their equipment before heading into the jungle. Children played games that, through countless generations, also served to train them for their responsibilities as hunter-gatherers.

Parents with young children who were not occupied in some task socialized with each other, their children kept in harnesses wrapped to their parents' chests. The socializing was more for their children's benefit, in order to teach them the language and social customs, than for the parents'.

Norm got a few sideways stares as he walked about Hometree, but for the most part the Na'vi were too preoccupied with their tasks to pay him much attention. One female warrior upon seeing Norm, however, walked away from her social group and approached him. He braced himself for a contentious encounter, but she sat down in front of him – which only just brought her to eye-level with him – and gave him a weak smile. "Good morning, Sky Person."

He smiled back at her and said, "Good morning,—," he let his voice trail off, raised an eyebrow, and held out a hand.

She understood the gesture and held a hand to her chest. "Naw'ngié."

"Naw'ngié," he repeated with a nod, taking a moment to break down the components of her name. "What was the great sign that marked your birth?"

Her smile broadened. "There was a terrible storm when my mother went into labor. It was so powerful that she could not be taken to the river to give birth to me. But when I was brought out, the skies cleared long enough to reveal a new star in the sky. Then the storm resumed, and the star was gone when the skies cleared again in the morning."

She was old enough to have been a child while RDA's operations were in full swing. In his mind, he pictured the star she described to be an ISV's plasma wake. However, since it was the source of her namesake, he did not entertain the idea of deconstructing her story. "That's a beautiful story," he said with a smile. "You must take great pride in it."

"I do," she replied candidly, and then abruptly changed topics. "How is Tseyo coming along in his training? You and Nakllte have kept him away from the rest of us, and he is always too tired at the end of the day to talk about it."

"He's doing very well," Norm replied. "He's a quick learner, and a very good fighter."

"I know Nakllte is teaching him to be a better fighter," she said, "but what are you teaching him?"

"I'm trying to prepare him for some of the – some of the peculiarities of Earth," he replied. "Let me show you." He pulled out his camera and was grateful that he had neglected to clean its memory, even though he was nowhere near close to having it full anyway. He scrolled back to pictures he took before he left for Pandora.

Norm stopped on a picture of San Francisco's skyline, taken the morning he left for Pandora. He turned the camera so the preview screen faced Naw'ngié, and her reaction was immediate. Her eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed while she tried to process the picture. He held the camera closer to her, quietly urging her to take it, which she did.

"Are these trees?" she asked after a moment of study.

"Sort of," he replied. He walked around to stand behind her, leaned over her shoulder, and described the picture's various features.

After he had described the nature of humanity's cities, she turned the camera at odd angles and asked, "How does it all fit in here?"

He chuckled and said, "It doesn't. Think of this as a painting."

"You have very good artists," she said in awe.

"Actually, that stone" – she did not quite grasp "camera" during his earlier explanation of the picture – "does the painting. It uses light to create a perfect image."

"I don't believe you," she said with a grin.

He smiled back at her and asked, "Would you like it to paint a picture of you?"

Her grin widened, and she returned the camera to him. "What do I have to do?"

"Nothing," he said as he stepped away. "Just smile, and don't mind the light."

Norm took a second to frame his shot. Even though the morning's light poured into Hometree, Naw'ngié was seated in shadows, causing the flash to activate. There were a couple of gasps from the Na'vi who had taken notice of their interaction – and from others who were not paying attention, and so were startled by the flash – but she simply rubbed her eyes.

"That was too bright," she said, blinking, as he approached.

He offered her a weak smile as an apology, but then turned the camera to show her the picture he took. She stared at it in disbelief, and then exclaimed, "It painted my ears too big!"

Naw'ngié's friends finally wandered over, and they took a moment to observe the picture for themselves. "It's beautiful," one of them finally said.

"It made my ears too big," Naw'ngié replied.

Her friend tried to hold back laughter and said, "I'm sorry, sister, but your ears _are_ that big."

Naw'ngié frowned, hit her friend's leg, and then stood up. "Well, Sky Person, that is a very strange stone," she said. "If your world is full of things like that, I don't know how you will have Tseyo ready."

"He will be prepared," Norm replied. "He wants to be."

She nodded, and then repeated, "My ears are not that big."

"They are," her friend replied, this time unable to keep her laughter contained, and then ducked from the expected, retaliatory hit.

* * *

Tseyo waited patiently for the first attack. He stood in the center of a ring of stones in the middle of the clearing where he had been training for more days than he cared to count. Nakllte had given him a number of new scars, and Norm had done much to alter his perceptions about what faced him on his journey. Despite the many obstacles and challenges they presented to him, he had persevered through his training.

This was the second day of this particular test, as he had failed to meet his teachers' standards the day before.

He kept his head lowered, as his test was to be able to anticipate the coming attacks without using his sight. Tseyo was beginning to get tired when he heard someone running at him from his left. He turned just as the warrior was upon him, and the two began to wrestle.

Tseyo had to throw him from the ring, and then return to his starting position to wait for the next attack. If he was forced outside the perimeter, the test would start over; if he took too long to throw his opponent out, he would exhaust himself too quickly and surely be defeated in the subsequent attack.

They struggled for a while, but Tseyo soon took the upper hand and ejected the warrior from the ring. As he ran off, Tseyo returned to the ready position – center of the circle, head down.

The next challenger came from behind him, but he used her momentum against her and easily deflected the attack.

The third warrior also came at him from behind – perhaps assuming Tseyo would not expect an attack to come from the same place twice in a row, and he was nearly right. Tseyo turned to meet him too late, and he was almost pushed out of the circle of stones by the force of the blow. However, he managed to dig his heels in, and launched into his counterattack.

The fourth warrior came from his right, and was defeated only after a prolonged fistfight. The fifth warrior came straight at him, and also came close to knocking him out of the ring; however, she lost her footing, and was easily pushed out. By the time the sixth warrior attacked from his left, Tseyo was becoming tired, but he managed to maintain a grapple long enough to trip him and eject him from the circle.

The seventh warrior tried to take advantage of Tseyo's weakness and, charging from behind, attacked him low. Though he was knocked to the ground, he was not pushed beyond the stones. Tseyo twisted his body and pushed the warrior off of him. But two times Tseyo tried to get to his feet, and both times his attacker managed to pin him to the ground. The second time Tseyo twisted his way out of the grapple, he landed a blow to the challenger's stomach. As the warrior gasped for air, Tseyo dragged him out of the ring.

Tseyo was breathing heavily when he took the starting position in anticipation of the eighth warrior. His legs burned, and his arms felt strained. He could barely hear the footfalls over his heartbeat, but he looked up to see the eighth warrior coming straight at him. The two were quickly locked in a grapple, and Tseyo was pushed to the ring's edge. Before being pushed out, he managed to grab his attacker's waist, twist, and throw him past the stone perimeter.

He returned to the center of the circle, anticipating yet another attack, when Nakllte called out, "Stop!" Tseyo looked up as the old warrior emerged from his observation post in the jungle. Nakllte approached to within a few hands' distance, and then he smiled and said, "You've done it, Tseyo. You have completed this trial."

It took Tseyo a few moments to think past the pain that consumed him and register what Nakllte had said. But shortly thereafter, the warriors who had been set against him emerged from their respective staging grounds to congratulate him on his success.

He was too overcome with exhaustion or emotion to say anything in response – he could barely smile – but he did not refuse any of his brothers' and sisters' embraces.

Nakllte put his hands on Tseyo's shoulders and said, "You have come very far. Whatever you do from here, be proud about what you have achieved."

Tseyo nodded, took a deep breath and said, "I will be most thankful for my teacher."

The old warrior smiled and embraced him as though Tseyo were his son. "You will make the people proud of you," he said. "I know it."

"To my last breath," Tseyo replied. "To my last breath."


	5. Final Countdown, Part I

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N: Once again, I needed to describe something in Na'vi that I could not find in canon or fanon material, though I may just be blind. _Tsì'ikran_ is "tetrapteron" until further updates.

* * *

Abe found her in the kitchen, cleaning the stove tops. "Laura, can I talk to you for a second?"

Laura had assumed a leadership role over the renegade avatar team as they dissociated themselves from Norm. She had also assumed the top spot of people he hated on Pandora. Norm's passive-aggressive nature annoyed him, but Laura could be counted on for blunt aggression and intransigence.

"You can," she replied without looking at him, "but don't expect me to say anything back."

"I only have two things I want to discuss," he replied.

"I only have two words for you."

He ignored her comment. "First, I need your help."

"You mean you don't have everything figured out?"

"I have everything figured out," he replied, "but I don't have enough teammates."

She snorted and said, "With your charisma? That's shocking."

Again, he brushed off her comment and continued. "Chairman Savage isn't the smartest person in the world, but even he'll suspect something's up if he stops receiving regular reports from this planet. I need someone to keep feeding him bullshit while we're on our way home."

Now she looked at him, eyebrows raised. "And you want me to be the one to feed him the said bullshit?"

"You're overly confident and probably have little moral objection lying to him," Abe said with a shrug. "You're a perfect candidate."

"Maybe," Laura replied, "were it not for the fact that I don't like you and have zero desire to take part in this plan."

Abe crossed his arms and asked, "Are you really going to let your hatred for me get in the way of doing what's best for you?"

"Norm tried that line," she said. "And I get how, on the surface, it would seem like our interests are one in the same. There's just one very key point you're overlooking."

"Enlighten me."

"We can still defend ourselves. Jake's still got his gun-toting warriors, and the SecOps troops they butchered unloaded plenty of offensive gear before they got knocked off."

Abe furrowed his brow and nodded slowly while he tried to process her logic. "So rather than try and guarantee our success in stopping the armada, you want to put twenty lab techs up against sixteen-hundred trained mercenaries."

"Plus a couple hundred Na'vi warriors on our side," Laura clarified. "Besides, they can't unload more than one third of their force at a time."

Abe rubbed his eyes. "And they were calling me crazy," he said. "Laura, you'll be massacred, and then the Na'vi will be massacred."

"Versus your plan where we all just lay down our guns so RDA can sweep in unopposed and resume operations," she replied, stepping closer to him. "You think I don't see what you're up to? Norm may have been sold on your shit – I can't blame him, really; you're persuasive, and he's an idealist – but the rest of us aren't."

"I don't remember ever saying that you all had to become defenseless," Abe said calmly. "But okay, I see your point."

Laura looked taken aback. "So you're admitting to it?"

"Sure," Abe replied. "This was all part of my master plan. I'd abandon my family for more than a decade just so I could come to Pandora, get my ass handed to me, piss off my boss, and get a bunch of soldiers killed _just_ to lower your guard and send in the main armada." He shook his head and asked, "Really, Laura, how crazy are you?"

"Maybe this is just your plan C or D or triple-Z," she replied. "But if you really expect me to believe that you've turned on your masters, you really must think I'm stupid."

"No, I think you're a bitch."

She narrowed her eyes at him and asked, "Aren't you supposed to at least _try_ to win me over to get onboard with your plan?"

"That doesn't mean I have to pretend to like you," he replied. "In a few days, we won't ever have to see each other again. But in five years, you're going to be faced with more trouble than you're prepared to handle – even in your obviously wild dreams. Now, if you want to cling to your guns and faltering alliances with the Na'vi as some kind of insurance policy, fine. I don't care.

"But if you want to actually think through this, and if you want to believe that maybe, just maybe, we have a real shot at turning the fleet around and saving you the trouble of martyring yourself for this planet, then maybe you'll want to work with me rather than against me."

"You don't have 'a real shot,'" Laura replied. "You have a one-in-one-billion shot, and that's if you're lucky. But do you know where I have the most trouble believing you, Abe?"

"I can probably guess, but I'll humor you and let you say it."

She curled her lips at him and then said, "It's your so-called motivation. I mean, all of a sudden you realize that RDA is evil and has to be stopped, after everything you've done. Honestly, Abe, how long have you worked for RDA?"

"Long enough to have known for a while that RDA accurately fits most people's definitions of 'evil,'" he replied. "Until now, I believed that the ends justified the means. Now, however, I see that this particular project is no longer suited to RDA's goals." Before she could respond, he added, "I haven't turned my back on RDA, Laura. Congratulations, you've caught me on not being forthcoming on that point. I've only turned my back on Chairman Savage and this world."

Laura hesitated before she replied, "So you're still working for the enemy?"

"For your enemy," he said. "I mean, first they'll have to give me my job back."

"So—," she could not finish her thought without lowering her head and pinching the bridge of her nose. "So you want me to help you overthrow the current leadership of RDA just so you can keep working for RDA?"

"And to keep this place from being overrun by mercenaries," he replied. "Yes, that's what I'm asking you to do. And if your priorities were in order, I'd say that last one should be on the top of your list."

Laura shook her head and said, "And – I dare to ask – what are the noble goals of RDA that you want to protect from Savage and his misguided ways?"

"Saving Earth," he replied flatly.

Laura laughed. "Wow! Man, Abe, they must have really gotten in your head," she replied. "Okay, well, before I turn you down, what was the second thing you wanted to discuss?"

Abe figured she thought he would just walk away at this point, but he had no intention of backing down on this point. "I want you to put the kids on the miners' ship when we turn it around."

In less than a heartbeat, Laura went from laughing at Abe's expense to being visibly horrified by his suggestion. "What?"

"I want you to get the kids out of here," he said. "If my plan fails, whether because you won't help or because it's just a lousy plan, then they're going to be killed by the mercenaries. If it succeeds, they're either going to be killed by the Na'vi if they're lucky, by some animal if they're unlucky, or they're going to die a slow death if they're really unlucky."

"Who the hell are you to make that call?" she asked incredulously. "I don't know how big you think your balls are, but…"

"Dammit, Laura!" he interrupted. "Reach into your not-too-distant past and think like a scientist again. Your people have managed to come together in eight breeding pairs. The children, assuming you don't have any more, potentially have six. If, by some miracle, they actually live long enough to procreate, they may end up with four pairs at this rate. Along the way, they're going to have to sustain this habitat, which even you people are having a difficult time doing at your strength.

"I'm sure you think you're giving them the gift of living in some paradise, but you and I both know that it's closer to a slow death in a Potemkin village."

"So you'd rather they all live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland?" she asked, her tone unchanged from before. "That's hardly trading up."

"At least it's survival," he replied. "Even if Earth is beyond the point of no return, humanity will find a way to survive. Here, humanity is on a guaranteed course to extinction; and you're giving your children expectations of a future that they will never actually realize."

She shook her head. "You make it sound like we never thought about that."

"Only that you didn't think about it very hard," he replied.

"We did," she said pointedly. "And you know what we decided? We decided that it would be better for some people, somewhere, to grow up in paradise, while the rest of humanity lurched towards extinction, than to keep this all to ourselves."

It was a rare moment that Abe was at a loss for words, but this was one of those moments. He was unable to get his mind around the idea that guaranteeing the end of humanity in one place was somehow better than giving it the hope to endure in another – especially for the unfortunate generation which found itself at the end of that inevitable future.

"All right, Abe, here's what I'm going to do," Laura said after his silence dragged on. "I'm going to give you a choice. You can either have me help you, or I'll convince the others to put their children on that ISV. I'm not going to do both."

Abe took a deep breath and crossed his arms again. "Let me guess: I don't have time to think about it."

"Nope."

He nodded. "All right, well, if you thought I was going to be caught in some kind of morality trap, I'm calling your bluff," he said. "Meet me in my office later to run through the essence of your cover story."

* * *

The long and rich oral tradition of the Omaticaya had never captured a ceremony like this. Earlier in the day, Tseyo had gone through the _Uniltaron_ to commune once more with his spirit animal, _tsì'ikran_. Now, the clan was performing a mix of _Iknimaya_ and hunting dances. Tseyo supposed it made sense – in a way, he was about to ascend to the heavens; and, in another way, he was going on a hunt. What made the ceremony truly strange, however, was that it was entirely dedicated to him, an honor typically reserved for the ascension of _olo'eyktan_s and _tsahik_s.

More than a few of the dancers on display tonight had modeled their costumes after Sky People – indeed, some of the costumes incorporated garments of the Sky People, ill-fitting though they were – and they spent as much time at the dances as allowing themselves to be hunted down and felled by groups of children.

Like all celebrations, there were more than enough spirits to go around; however, Tseyo refrained as much as their customs would allow. He wanted to be sure he would remember tonight.

As the night went on, the dancers gathered around the ceremonial mound at the center of the atrium floor. Tseyo was gently pushed by his fellow tribesmen towards the front of the audience. Once there and seated, Mo'at, taking on the role of _tsahik_, took to the mound.

She looked at him and smiled, and then said, "Tseyo, you have spent much time learning Eywa's ways, and the lessons of our ancestors. You know it is our custom to only compose songs for great ones after their energy has become one with Eywa's. But the journey you are about to undertake is so extraordinary that we had to forego our customs."

He knew she was being kind. They were honoring him lavishly tonight in no small part because of the chance that he would never come home.

"And so, Tseyo, your family has composed this song for you. Tonight, you will see yourself through our eyes." Mo'at stepped down while the people whooped and applauded, and those seated nearest to him patted his shoulders.

To his surprise, Naw'ngié was the first dancer on the mound; but he was happy to see that she was wearing the necklace he had crafted for her. If Tseyo had been nervous when he approached her to ask for her permission to begin a courtship, he was a wreck when, not even before night could fall, he had to tell her that he could no longer pursue her. Naw'ngié, a loyal servant of their _tsahik_, understood the command; but he worried if he had hurt her.

In addition to wearing his necklace, she was dressed as his spirit animal. One of his brothers sitting nearby leaned over and, just above a whisper, said to him with a grin, "Don't give in to vanity, Tseyo. You aren't that beautiful."

He chuckled in response, but he kept his eyes fixed on her.

Flutes accompanied the first part of the dance, which reenacted his childhood. Playing off his namesake, Naw'ngié danced as an artist, painting the blank, hide masks of other dancers on the stage. Then a more familiar dance took hold: the destruction of his ancestral _Kelutral_. The Omaticaya had long ago put the tragedy into song. It served as a reminder for all the survivors, a tribute to the dead, and a lesson for generations to come.

Dancers dressed as Sky People stormed onto the mound as drums pounded, joined by the great trapeze drums higher in the tree. The dancers shouted in ejectives, mimicking the horrifying sound of their home's collapse. The Na'vi and Sky People dancers then reenacted the battle which ensued, at the end of which the Sky People were expelled from the stage.

In normal ceremonies, that would have been the end of the dance; however, it continued with the search for their current home. Naw'ngié was joined on the stage by Vezek, a close friend of his late-sister, who was dressed as Mehi'a's spirit animal, the _pa'li_. The dance did not include a reenactment of how their mother died during the exodus, and flutes once again took over for the drums, but they were played solemnly. Nobody who remembered the exodus would remember it as a happy time.

The next act, accompanied by light drums, and shorter than either of the first two acts, played out their growth as acolytes. Then a new character came on stage. He wore two masks and a combination of two costumes – one was a Sky Person, the other a _palulukan_. It was Mu'kuti, although he was stripped of his alleged spirit animal, the _nantang_, for the evil and uncelebrated bane of the jungle.

Tseyo managed to keep his anger in check while the dance reenacted Mu'kuti's seduction and murder of Mehi'a. After her death, the Sky People danced in celebration while he searched for her. Upon discovering her body, he set upon the Sky People and killed them one at a time until it was down to him and Mu'kuti. They dueled, and with Eywa's assistance, he emerged triumphant.

He raised an eyebrow at the final act. Nobody present could have possibly believed that account on factual grounds, and he wondered if that was truly how they saw him. However, the people were more than pleased by the performance. As he tried to push the doubt out of his mind, another thought occurred to him: What if that was a representation of what they expected him to accomplish?

The clan began to retire to their hammocks following the dance. Tseyo was about to follow suit, when he was taken aside by Jakesully and Nakllte. The _olo'eyktan_ turned to Tseyo and said, "You are going to a very dangerous place."

He nodded.

Jakesully tapped the sheath of the dagger Tseyo wore on his belt. "Nakllte has trained you well, but this isn't going to be enough to keep you safe." Nakllte untied a dagger from his belt and handed it to Jakesully, who promptly withdrew it from its sheath for Tseyo to see: It was the ceremonial dagger Tseyo had used to exact justice from Mu'kuti. "We think this is more appropriate for you to have."

Tseyo was at a loss for words, but he accepted the gift and wasted no time affixing it to his belt. "It suits you," Nakllte said. "Wield it proudly."

"I will," he replied, still surprised by the presentation. "Thank you both."

Jakesully patted him on the shoulder and said, "Sleep well. We'll leave right away in the morning." He nodded, and then Jakesully walked away with Nakllte.

Tseyo did not walk more than a few steps before he was intercepted again. Vezek, now out of her costume, approached and embraced him. "Did you enjoy it?" she asked.

"Very much," he replied, wrapping his arms around her. "Mehi'a would have loved it, too. You honored her with your dance."

They held each other for a while longer. Both had been devastated by Mehi'a's death: Tseyo as her brother, Vezek as her childhood friend. It was one thing for a person to be killed in the course of a hunt or battle – dying in the service of the clan was natural. Mehi'a's death was so abhorrent to their customs, however, that the shock was difficult to overcome. Though they believed her energy lived on in Eywa, it was difficult for that belief to fill the void left by her physical absence.

She had scolded him for displaying hubris soon after he volunteered for the journey to Earth; but in the days leading up to his departure, her temper cooled, and she returned to being a supportive friend.

Vezek sighed and took a step away from him. She untied a pouch from her belt and carefully handed it to him. "This came to me while I was practicing the dance," she said. "You should take it with you."

Tseyo opened the pouch, and his heart skipped when he saw its contents. He slowly upended the pouch and let the a_tokirina'_ fall into his hand. Its tendrils fluttered despite the lack of a breeze, and he was mesmerized by its pure light.

"It came to me as one of many," Vezek explained. "But when the wind picked up again, this one was not carried away."

"Mehi'a's energy has been with Eywa for a while," he said without looking away from the seed. "And she loved to dance."

Vezek nodded. "I've heard some say that you won't be able to survive in the sky, away from Eywa. I hope this will keep you safe."

"I'm sure it will," he replied. He returned the seed to the pouch as carefully as he had taken it, and then he hugged Vezek again. "Thank you for this."

"You're welcome," she said. "Please come home to us, Tseyo."

"You know I will."

She responded by kissing his cheek, and then she ascended the atrium to her hammock. Before Vezek disappeared from his sight, Tseyo saw her bring a hand to her eyes, and he felt a slight pain of guilt. He had never intended for his departure to cause others to suffer; but as he had learned with Naw'ngié, his decision had wider ramifications than he had anticipated.

Others stopped him on his way to his hammock to wish him a safe and successful travel, and some of them presented him small trinkets and mementos. By the time he did get to his bunk, he was more than ready to fall asleep. However, there was one more person who wanted to wish him farewell.

Tseyo smiled and said, "It would appear that I got to my hammock sooner than I knew."

Naw'ngié, sitting in his hammock, smiled back at him and replied, "And you became more beautiful along the way."

"You're the second person to make that comment," he replied as he crawled into his hammock. "It makes me wonder how the people really see me."

Still smiling, she clicked her tongue at him and put a hand on his cheek. "Stay away from vanity, Tseyo. Besides, you have no reason to worry."

He placed his hand over hers and sighed. "You know you shouldn't be here. The courtship is over."

Her smile faded and Naw'ngié nodded. "I know," she replied. "But it seemed wrong to me that you should be alone on your last night with the people."

Tseyo looked around at all the hammocks tied near his, most of which had carried their occupants off to sleep. "I'm not alone," he said. "Nobody is alone, here."

Naw'ngié looked over at Norm's hammock, to which he had retired much earlier in the evening, and said, "It's a shame he didn't stay awake for the dance."

"He wanted to," he replied, "but his body was too weak." He shook his head and added, "Sky People have a very strange sleep pattern. They go to sleep early at night."

"Did he ever tell you why?"

"No, but I don't remember asking."

She looked back to Tseyo. "Do you trust him?" she asked.

"Yes," he said with a nod. "He taught me well."

"I spoke with him a while ago," she said. "I can see how he'd be a good teacher."

He nodded again and returned to the topic at hand. "Naw'ngié, _tsahik_'s judgment was right. It would be cruel for me to leave a mate alone for so long."

Naw'ngié sighed. "Yes, that was right." She looked down and added, "I won't be able to wait for you, Tseyo. I want a mate, and I want to have children with him."

"And you should have them," he replied.

"So should you, and so you shouldn't leave here thinking there won't be anybody waiting for your return. When you come home with your tales of bravery, there will be many women who will want to choose you to be with them." She looked up and said, "I won't be one of them, but I want you to know what it will be like."

Tseyo shook his head and said, "This isn't a gift I can accept from you."

She laughed and replied with a wry grin, "Don't listen too hard to my words, acolyte. I'm not offering you my body, only my companionship."

He was not entirely convinced of the appropriateness of her gift, and she must have seen that reflected in his expression. She grinned and said, "Tseyo, we've already challenged our ancestors' customs. We've honored you in dance, even though your energy is still among us, and we're going to send you to the sky." She touched the necklace he had given her and continued, "I don't have your talent for crafts. I don't have anything else to offer you except my companionship."

Tseyo sighed and nodded. "Okay, Naw'ngié," he said with a smile. "I accept your gift."

* * *

As had been the case weeks earlier, Norm held on to Jake for his life as the direhorse galloped through the jungle. Jake and his warrior escort, including Nakllte, were taking Norm and Tseyo to their rendezvous point with Luke, at which they would board a Samson and head back to Hell's Gate. All of the warriors, including Tseyo, had no trouble keeping up with Jake, and Norm thought it was dumb luck that prevented one of them from crashing into any one of the branches or rigid vines that hung over the trail.

Where Norm had his duffel, Tseyo carried his belongings in his hammock, which he had tied into a kind of sack. His most treasured possessions were left at Hometree – a reminder for the clan to expect his return.

When the small cavalry detachment reached the clearing, they dismounted their direhorses and waited for the Samson to appear. "Here's hoping a banshee or leonopteryx didn't find him first," Norm said. "We don't have a back-up plan."

"I'm sure he'll be here soon," Jake replied.

Norm nodded and then asked, "Jake, is there, um, anybody back on Earth you want me to get in touch with once we get back there?"

Jake shook his head. "I have some extended family, but nobody I was really close to. When Tom died, that was pretty much it for me. Besides, if they missed me earlier, I'm pretty sure they'd have moved on by now." Jake looked at Tseyo and added, "He won't say it, but I think it's the same for him. After Mehi'a was murdered, he was changed. I think that's why he was the only one who stepped forward for this."

Norm nodded. The murder on its own had to be traumatic enough for him, and on top of that he was effectively going into exile – to be removed from his home and the fundamental source of his lifelong beliefs. If Tseyo were a human applying for the Pandora program in this condition, Norm had no doubt that he would fail the psychological profiling.

Whatever Norm's opinions, though, Tseyo had made it through the training regimen; and he was here saying his final farewells to the people who had accompanied him. He was not going to be turned back at the last second.

"I was wondering," Norm said, "what happens to his banshee?"

"We'll keep it nested at Hometree," Jake replied. "After a while, it will figure out that he isn't coming back and go roost elsewhere. It won't bond again, but it will carry on with its own life."

Norm raised an eyebrow at him. "You said, 'He isn't coming back.' You think we're going up against impossible odds?"

Jake crossed his arms and said, "No – well, yes – but I missed the part in Abe's plan where Tseyo comes home."

Norm tried to put together a response, but then it occurred to him that he was not aware of those details, either. "So, wait, you're willingly sending one of your people on a one-way trip to Earth?"

"If this mission is successful, it will be better than waiting around for hundreds of people to be given one-way trips to Eywa's embrace in RDA's final attack."

Norm was ready to lay into Jake for his grim arithmetic, but then Tseyo approached, a sack slung over his shoulder, and nodded at Jake. "I'm ready," he said in his native tongue. "When are we supposed to make our ascent?"

"Soon," Norm replied. "We just have to wait a little while longer."

As if on cue, the Samson appeared overhead and, after circling a few times, came in for a landing. The engines were left to idle, filling the clearing with their unnatural noise and startling the direhorses. Luke gave them a wave, and then a thumbs-up. Norm nodded at Luke, and then looked at Tseyo and said, "It will be easier if you get inside first. You're going to take up most of the space back there, so I will sit up with the other Sky Person."

Tseyo hesitated before nodding in response, his eyes fixated on the craft. Norm wondered if this was the closest he had come to this kind of human technology, and he worried if he was having very deep second thoughts. Tseyo looked back at the other people, and then at Jake. "I will come home, Jakesully."

Jake nodded and embraced Tseyo. "I know," he replied. "You will make the people proud."

A moment later, Tseyo stepped away from him and made his way to the Samson's passenger bay. While Tseyo contorted to fit in the compartment, Norm looked at Jake and said with a sigh, "So this is it."

"It is," he replied.

"I'm not really good at these sorts of things." He laughed nervously and added, "I'm actually really bad at them."

Jake chuckled and said, "Same here."

Norm rubbed the back of his neck as he looked for something – anything! – to say. He settled on, "We've been through way, way more than can be put into words, but I can't think of anybody else I'd have wanted to go through it with."

Jake was even more to the point. "Likewise."

After trying to come up with something more profound to say, and failing, Norm simply held out his hand, hoping a handshake might suffice. Jake, however, got down on his knees and fully embraced him; and Norm was quick to throw his arms around him. "You've done Tom proud, you know?"

Jake nodded. "You have, too."

They held each other for a while longer before Norm pulled back. "It's '_Semper Fi_,' right?"

Jake gave him a textbook salute and said, "_Semper Fi_." Norm's return salute was less than textbook, but it was all he could think to do.

Norm then took the co-pilot seat in the Samson, and nodded to Luke. "Let's go."

Jake and his warrior guards began to whoop and holler as the engines roared back to life, and the craft began to ascend. Seconds later, it had cleared the jungle canopy, and Luke throttled forward to carry them back to Hell's Gate. From there, the _Cybele_ waited for its turn to carry them on to Earth.


	6. Final Countdown, Part II

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

As soon as he arrived at the Sky People's home, Tseyo was escorted to an enclosed area with a long, wood-constructed domicile. Norm told him it was where the dreamwalkers' Na'vi bodies slept back in the days when they were active. "We don't leave for Earth until tomorrow," Norm said. "You'll sleep out here tonight."

It was easy to see how the shelter had deteriorated in the absence of the dreamwalkers' care. The roofing had caved in at places, and many of the sleeping mats had rotted. Among the decay, Tseyo managed to find a cot that was mildly comfortable, and he set his belongings beside it.

He then took a moment to survey the rest of the enclosure. "Why are all the plants growing in rows?"

"It's a Sky Person thing," Norm replied. "_Farming_," he said in his native language. "We do this to ensure that there is always food available."

"Food is always available," Tseyo said. "Eywa provides for all creatures who respect it."

"This is something we had to do to survive on Earth, long before we could control it. Food wasn't always as bountiful to my ancestors as it is here."

"Why not?"

Norm shrugged. "That's just the nature of our planet."

Tseyo walked among the rows of plants, occasionally stopping to inspect the produce. As he had not had the opportunity to get breakfast – and he was loathe to ask for the kind of food Norm would offer – he picked one of the fruits and eagerly consumed it. Even though he regarded farming to be an unnatural practice, he was impressed by the quality that the Sky People had managed to achieve with it.

"A person could become a glutton, here," he said with a smile.

Norm laughed and replied, "I am going to miss the food."

At that moment, a darker skinned Sky Person exited the main home and approached them. Although he was smiling and trying to be friendly, Tseyo could not help but wince at his pronunciation of, "_Kaltxì_."

Still, he smiled back and said, "_Kaltxì_."

"Tseyo, this is Max," Norm said. "He's going to be with us on the journey to Earth." He gave a wry grin and added, "And I think that's the extent of the Na'vi he knows."

"I hope so," Tseyo replied with a short laugh. "My ears couldn't take more of that."

Norm's instinct turned out to be correct, and he spoke with Max in their common language for a short while. Norm then turned to him and said, "It's time to get your mask fitted."

Tseyo frowned. "Are you sure I'll need one?"

Norm nodded. "Even if you could breathe the natural air on Earth, it's been poisoned. Even we have to wear these masks when we're not in a shelter."

Tseyo was not sure how air could become poisoned, but he decided to take Norm at his word. He followed him into the main shelter, and he quickly felt out of place. Even though the room was tall enough to accommodate him, he was not used to being surrounded by walls and in a space illuminated by unnatural lights. It was also much colder than he was used to.

There was a metal cot in front of him, and Norm instructed him to lie down. Like the room, he found it uncomfortably cold. Although Norm tried to be reassuring throughout the rest of the process, he found it very difficult to contain the discomfort he felt once the mask was on.

"Okay," Norm said. "We're going to replace the air in this place with our own in order to make sure the mask is working properly. You'll hear a lot of noises, like strong winds, but it's normal."

"What if the mask isn't working?"

"We'll get you back outside quickly and figure out what's wrong."

Norm nodded to Max, who in turn touched a series of illuminated stones on the wall. As Norm had said, the room became was filled by a myriad of strange noises – few of which sounded like wind – but he maintained his composure. A short time later, the noise stopped, and Norm patted him on his shoulder. "Are you able to breathe?"

Tseyo took a deep breath to be certain, and then nodded. "I think it's working."

"Good. Head back outside, and try to get comfortable wearing the mask and pack. You'll be wearing them for the rest of the journey."

They waited for Max had to change the air again so he could leave; and once back in the shelter, back in the warmth of the world he was familiar with, Tseyo reclined on his cot. He had only been away from his home for half of a day, and already the strange things he had seen were beginning to weigh on his mind.

He untied the pouch on his belt which contained the holy seed Vezek had given to him the night before. Taking care to withdraw the seed, he cupped it in one hand and gently brushed his fingers over its tendrils with the other. Despite the occasional gust of wind that penetrated the decaying walls, the seed stayed with him – at times appearing to resist the wind in order to do so.

Tseyo brought the seed to his chest and took a deep breath. "I hope you aren't as scared as I am," he said. "I think I'll need to draw on your strength many times before this is over."

* * *

Norm found Abe in his office. "Can we talk?" he asked, trying to convey in his tone that it was less of an ask and more a statement of intent.

"Sure," he said. "Welcome back, by the way. Did you have a good time?"

Norm skipped the small talk and said, "How is Tseyo supposed to get home?"

Abe snorted and said, "It sounds like a great time." He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "Aren't you skipping ahead a few steps? There's a lot that's going to need to happen once we get to _our_ home before we can start talking about getting Tseyo back here."

"You've planned this operation down to the smallest detail, and you can't at least outline how Tseyo makes it back here?"

"I'm pretty sure it involves a spaceship in some way," he said with a short laugh.

Norm was less amused. "You don't know."

Abe nodded slowly. "I don't know."

Norm took a deep breath and asked, "Do you care?"

"Yes," he replied flatly. "But there are more important things to worry about in the near-term."

Norm leaned forward to place his hands on Abe's desk. "He just left his entire life for this mission, and you don't think it's a priority to get him home?"

"Who's been giving him the impression that he's guaranteed to make it home?"

"Nobody's said he's guaranteed," Norm replied. "But there's nothing wrong with giving him hope."

"You've just spent a month with him," Abe said. "In all that time, did you try to inject a little bit of _reality_ with that hope?"

"We made sure he knew it was dangerous, but I don't think we ever got around to telling him this was a suicide mission."

"Well, I'm glad for that," Abe replied. "Because it's not a suicide mission – not by design, anyway. However, I'm going to guess he understands the concept better than you appreciate. After all, they do go dragon chasing when they're kids."

"Are you trying to compare this to _Iknimaya_?"

"Why not?" he said with a shrug. "You remember that little girl who died here a few months ago, right?"

"Of course."

Abe nodded. "Don't you think she thought she was going home as a dragon master, or whatever they call it?"

Norm sat back in his chair and nodded.

"And all those Na'vi who fought against Quaritch's army, don't you think they thought they'd go home?"

"Yeah, probably."

"Do you think any of them thought they were _guaranteed_ to go home?"

"No."

"So then why is Tseyo special?"

"_Iknimaya_ is a rite of passage," Norm replied. "Warfare, though rare, is part of their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Even though both of those things are dangerous, if a Na'vi lives through either of them, they get to go home. Those are familiar concepts to him. But the idea that he could live through this mission and _still_ be kept from going home probably has not occurred to him."

Abe was quiet and idly tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. After a while, he asked, "Does he have a wife and kids waiting for him?"

"No," Norm replied. "Neytiri prohibited it."

Abe nodded. "Then he doesn't have to know he could be stranded on Earth."

"Or do you mean, 'Then I don't have to give a shit?'" Norm crossed his arms and asked, "Have you ever heard of 'informed consent?'"

"So he's a test subject, now?" Abe leaned forward and said, "He was informed that he's going to Earth on a dangerous mission to save his people from annihilation, and he consented." He sighed and said, "You and your people have gone on at length about the Na'vi's intelligence. Do you think it's possible that Tseyo, without your prompting, has already thought about this possibility?"

"If he had, I'm sure he would have told me or Jake about it," Norm replied.

"Maybe," Abe said. "Or maybe the idea scares him so much that he's afraid to bring it up, or he's being a good soldier and keeping his mouth shut. Either way, what are we going to gain by telling him at this point?"

"He has a right to know," Norm replied. "Or at the very least, you don't have the right to jerk him around like a puppet."

Abe sighed, "Listen, Norm, I have no intention of selling him off to a zoo or science lab when we're done. I _will_ try to get him back here. In the meantime, though, he's going to have enough to worry about without thinking that he's going to become Na'vi Crusoe."

He held up his hands before Norm could respond and said, "I'm going to leave it to you. If you think his 'right to know' is more important than what we need him to do, tell him."

Norm sat there for a moment to contemplate that, and then he snorted and shook his head. "You're a fucking coward, you know that?"

Abe furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes. "Excuse me?"

"You want me to tell him because you can't tell him yourself. For all your plotting and scheming, you're too big of a coward to actually face the consequences of your actions."

For a moment, Norm thought he saw in Abe's eyes a flash of pure anger. Rather than explode, however, Abe took a deep breath and said with an unnerving calmness, "To the contrary, Norm. You should tell him because if he's under the impression that he's got a guaranteed ticket home, then that's _your_ fault for not adequately preparing him. I never made any promises, and I'm not going to go out of my way to make them."

"You're shameless," Norm replied. "I mean, excuse us for inferring that when you put out a call for volunteers, they should have a reasonable expectation to be taken care of."

"Well, Norm, once again: If you think he has a right to know, by all means, go tell him. Give him the chance to back out at the last second, and to return to his people with his tail tucked between his legs. I'm sure that will be an attractive trait for any prospective mates."

Norm shook his head. "All right, so what are you going to do when we accomplish our mission, and Tseyo asks you when he gets to go home?"

"I'll tell him, honestly, that I don't know."

"And when he figures out that, 'I don't know,' really means, 'Thank you for your help, but you're screwed,' I'm sure you'll take solace in your honesty when he snaps your neck in half."

* * *

Abe and Luke spent the next morning shuttling supplies to the _Cybele_ while the team made their own final preparations. Their first meeting with Tseyo was a fairly cool one, with few of the team's members warmly receiving him; and Tseyo did not appear to be too hurt by their lukewarm greetings.

Mid-morning, the _Cybele_ shuttle broke through the clouds and, after circling the facility to bleed off speed, landed on the tarmac. Abe emerged and said, "The _Johannes Kepler_ is in orbit. The crew is already out of cryo, and the passengers won't be far behind. We don't have a lot of time."

While the others made their way to the shuttle, Abe walked up to Norm, looked at Tseyo and asked, "Last chance – is he ready?"

Norm nodded. "He seems to be."

"What is he bringing with him?"

"Some hunting gear, food, and good luck gifts from the clan."

Abe raised an eyebrow and asked, "What does he think he's going to do with all that? This isn't a safari."

"He and I disagree."

"Fair enough," Abe replied with a sigh. "How does he expect to eat the food he's bringing?"

"I've offered to turn it into a paste for him when we get to Earth," Norm replied, "It won't be great, but it will at least be familiar to him."

Abe just shook his head and said, "Tell him we're happy to have all the good luck charms we can." Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked back towards the craft.

Tseyo looked at Norm and said, "I thought I might like him more by now, but I don't."

Norm laughed and replied, "I know how you feel, and this is only the beginning." He paused and said, "Well, let's go."

The two boarded the shuttle, at which point Tseyo was confronted with the issue of his height. Norm and the others tried to shuffle themselves to accommodate him, and to avoid getting thwacked by his tail, but ultimately there was no other choice for him than to lie on the floor.

"Make sure your seat is in the full, upright position," Max quipped to Tseyo. Norm was confident that even if Max had said it in Na'vi, he would have gotten the same confused expression in response.

The engines roared to life a few moments later. After a quick vertical ascent off the tarmac, the shuttle accelerated forward. Tseyo almost slid across the floor to the back of the shuttle, but he strategically grabbed onto Norm's leg; which prompted Norm to grab onto an overhead bar and bet that he was going to experience the worst charley horse in his life.

Once the shuttle exited Pandora's atmosphere, Abe addressed the team through the intercom, "Everyone except Luke, Jose and Kim will disembark at the _Cybele_. You will secure yourselves in the cryobay, after which Norm and I will re-embark and shuttle over to the _Johannes Kepler_. Brace yourselves for zero gravity in thirty seconds."

Norm looked down at Tseyo and said, "Hold on to your bag. You and it are going to rise off the floor, soon. Don't worry, it's natural."

"That doesn't sound natural," he responded. Then he grinned and said, "You just want me to let go of your leg."

"That would help, too."

Seconds later, the shuttle decelerated enough to cause the artificial gravity to fail. As Norm had promised, Tseyo and his belongings began to rise off the floor. Norm grabbed for his bag while others did their best to hold Tseyo in place. Despite his warning, though, Tseyo was startled by the experience, and he struggled against them; so Norm unhooked his harness and let himself be at the mercy of weightlessness.

"Let go of him, guys," he said, and reluctantly they did. He instructed Tseyo on how to orient his body to keep from knocking into the others, and then led him towards a window. "Look out here," he instructed. "There's your home."

The view appeared to calm him down, and Norm could not also help but find some peace in Pandora's beauty. He watched Tseyo's eyes dart about, he assumed in an attempt to discern specific landmarks. The shuttle rolled, and Polyphemus came into view, causing Tseyo to gasp. Norm recalled the first time he saw Polyphemus from Pandora's surface – a new experience for him, as he had become more than accustomed to seeing planets in their space-borne habitat – and he figured Tseyo was experiencing the same emotions.

"Two minutes until we dock," Luke said over the intercom, "and then we'll have artificial gravity again."

"I'm going back to my seat," Norm said to Tseyo. "Just stay here until you feel yourself getting heavy again." Tseyo was apparently so fixated on the view that he did not acknowledge Norm; so Norm grabbed his shoulder and repeated himself. Tseyo just nodded, and Norm returned to his seat.

Amy, seated across from Norm, looked at Tseyo and said, "I wonder if you would see the same expression if you did a side-by-side of him and John Glenn."

"Probably," Norm replied. "It's hard to imagine back when space flight was exciting."

"Keep in mind that he's probably going to be both the first and last Na'vi in space," Max offered. "He'll be the only one to ever see this."

"I don't know if that makes it more special for him, or saddening," Norm said.

Minutes later, the shuttle docked with the _Cybele_, artificial gravity took over, and the shuttle was pressurized for an Earth atmosphere. Although the others took off their exopack masks, Norm indicated for Tseyo to keep his on just in case he got the urge to follow suit.

Abe emerged from the cockpit and said, "We're going to get Tseyo situated first. The rest of you wait a few minutes before disembarking." He looked at Max and said, "Except for you, Doctor. Come with us."

Norm opened the hatch connecting the shuttle to the cargo bay, and he had a brief flashback to the last time he was in this position. He half expected to see Parker again, and he took no small amount of pleasure in knowing that was not going to be the case.

The _Cybele_'s cargo bay had enough headroom to accommodate Tseyo's height, and Abe led them to one of the storage containers. "This one's refrigerated," he said. "His food should keep in here," he gave a wry grin and added, "but you might want to let him know that there's no guarantee of that."

Norm paused, glaring at Abe for his choice of words, and then walked Tseyo through the basics of human preservation technology. It was a concept which was only barely explainable in words Tseyo could understand; however, his explanation was good enough to get Tseyo to agree to have his food and trinkets stored.

They proceeded to the cryobay, and Tseyo had to crouch in order to navigate the corridor. "His bay is the last one on the bottom row," Abe said. He looked at Max and asked, "Can you handle getting him squared away, or should I get Doctor Cook up here?"

"I can take care of it," Max replied.

* * *

The mask was uncomfortable. Having to crouch was uncomfortable. He felt heavier. The narrow pathway were illuminated by strange lights which, though he knew were not fires, he did not think were the same as the lights which occurred on the plants and animals with which he was most familiar. On top of all of that, the whole place was much colder than anything he could remember – even the room where his mask had been fitted.

Norm and Max led him into the back of an alcove that, along one wall, had several rows of what looked like the storage container in which he had left his belongings. Once they were at the back of the alcove, Norm knelt and opened one of the containers, from which he pulled a narrow, padded mat that had an assortment of belts, clasps, and needled strings attached to it. "This is where you'll sleep," Norm said.

Tseyo crouched down further and looked inside the tube. It was darker and more confined than he was hoping for. "Can't I use my hammock?" he asked, although he was just as inclined to beg.

Norm shook his head. "It's a different kind of sleep," he said. "It has to be in here." Norm reached in and pulled out the strings for him to examine. "Max is going to stick these in your arms. They are what will make you go to sleep."

"How?"

"They let a special kind of water flow into your body," he replied. "That water puts you to sleep."

Tseyo was certain it was more intricate than that. Norm had been a good teacher, but at times he was not sure if Norm insisted on explaining things to him as though he were a child because he did not have the right words to speak to him as an adult, or if because Norm somehow thought he had an inferior intelligence. Whatever the reason was, it was beginning to annoy him – or was it his nerves making him more irritable? – and in this instance, Tseyo had a simpler explanation.

"You mean I'm going to get drunk."

Norm chuckled and said, "It will feel that way when you wake up, yes."

They were interrupted when T'ngyute shouted something at them from the other end of the corridor which, although Tseyo could not understand the exact words, he could tell from the tone of voice that it was a call for them to hurry up. Norm and Max angrily shouted back at him.

Norm shook his head, and then turned his attention back to Tseyo. "You need to keep wearing the mask, but we're going to have to move your pack around a little bit." He indicated a depression in the tube, and said, "Take off your pack and put it in here, then lie down on the mat."

Tseyo did as instructed, having to make several tries before the pack fit correctly. Although the tube was dark and uninviting, he was surprised to find that the mat itself was very well cushioned. He felt as though he were resting on layers of well-woven fronds, or packed moss. Before he got comfortable – or as comfortable as the circumstances would allow – Norm and Max secured thick belts around his chest and waist. Then they grabbed his arms, Norm on his left, Max on his right, and tightened clamps to his forearms.

After that, and as Norm had warned, Max took the strings and stuck them through holes in the clasps on his forearms. It felt like a series of particularly vicious insect bites, but it was not unbearable.

"Take a deep breath and hold it," Norm instructed. Tseyo complied, at which point Norm disconnected the vine which linked the mask to the pack and then connected it to another place inside the tube. "You can breathe again," Norm said.

Tseyo tried to guess what the point of that was, but could not come up with anything plausible.

"We're going to close this, now. It will be dark, but briefly. You'll hear a sound like wind blowing, and then the liquid will begin to flow into your arms. It will feel like it's burning you, like you feel in your throat when you drink _tìngasunilzyu_, but you will be asleep before you're even really aware of it."

Tseyo took another deep breath and nodded. Norm pushed the mat forward, and a moment later, Tseyo was shrouded in a darkness that he had never known before. Soon after, however, the same odd lights which were throughout the corridor lit up, casting him in a blue light that felt just barely more familiar.

Whereas he had left all his other possessions in the cold container farther back in the tree, he had kept the a_tokirina'_ in its pouch on his belt. He could not raise his head far enough to ensure he was untying the pouch properly, but he was reassured when he felt the sacred seed fall into his hand.

There was just enough room in the tube, and enough give in the clasps on his arms, to allow him to bring the seed up to his chest. Its light was more brilliant than the blue ones the Sky People had affixed to the tube, and it gave him a measure of comfort.

Soon thereafter, he heard a series of clicks, and then the sound of wind rushing past him. The air in his mask took on a more pungent odor, and then he felt the burning sensation in his arms that Norm had described, but it lasted much longer than he had been told. He was not even slightly tired, much less asleep, when the burning spread from his forearms to his entire body.

He tried to suppress the pain. He tried to recall the warmth of Naw'ngié's body from the night she spent in his arms. As much as he tried to resist the pain, however, he could only bear it for so long.

Tseyo wanted to scream and kick at the base of the tube, to cry out and beg for a release. But adding to his torment, he found that he could neither move nor scream. He was not sure if he was even breathing. As his panic turned into a frenzied desire to crawl out of his frozen and burning body, the Sky People's lights went out. He was left illuminated only by the glow from the a_tokirina'_; but unlike before, its light was little comfort compared to the excruciating pain and terror that consumed him.

Tseyo had no way to gauge time, but eventually his vision began to blur. The light from the holy seed became dim. Mercifully, he finally entered a dreamless sleep.

* * *

"Doctor Patel, can you check on his vitals?" Abe asked. "I don't know if these spikes are normal for a Na'vi or not."

Max walked over and took over the monitor. He zoomed in on the screen that was tracking Tseyo's vitals. "They look normal for a Na'vi," he said after a moment of study. "Their E-E-G readings are usually this high, given their advanced neural network."

"All right," Abe said. "Get the others in here, and work with Doctor Cook to get them in cryo." He pointed at Norm and said, "You and I have one more thing to do."

Norm followed Abe back to the shuttle as the others stowed their gear and headed for the cryobay. Jose and Kim remained harnessed in their seats. "We need to get control of the _Kepler_'s crew first," Abe said to them. "Then you'll go into cryo."

"Let us know when you're done," Kim said. "Again, we're just along for the ride."

Abe frowned, but nodded. Norm secured the hatch, and Abe entered the cockpit. He took the co-pilot seat. "Are you ready?"

"The hatch is secure," Luke replied, "and we're breaking away in five, four, three, two, one." He flipped a switch, and the shuttle lurched away from the _Cybele_. "The radio is patched in to their frequency if you want to try and hail them."

Abe activated the communications panel and said, "ISV _Johannes Kepler_, this is _Cybele One_, do you read?"

"You're five by five, _Cybele One_," a voice called back. "We've been trying to raise the colony, but haven't been successful. Is there a problem on the surface?"

"A magnetic storm knocked out surface communications," Abe replied. "We're looking forward to getting some of your folks on the problem."

"Well, Merry Christmas, _Cybele One_. We've got some wise men in cryo who can check it out."

"I always figured the Star of Bethlehem was a plasma wake," Abe replied with a chuckle. "But hold on opening the stable doors for now, _Kepler_. We have had a few setbacks getting our support facilities up and running, so we can't put one-hundred fifty more people on the ground just yet. I've got some specs here, and am asking to come aboard to brief."

"Uh, negative, _Cybele One_. We are carrying two Valkyries and have no additional docking ports."

"You have emergency ports at the crew stations, don't you?"

"Yes. They're for emergencies."

"_Kepler_, nobody's going to cite you for improper use of an emergency hatch up here," Abe said. "We're going to dock on your station. You can either send us vectors, or we can pilot there on our own – we have your beacon locked."

There was a pause, and then the _Johannes Kepler_ captain replied, "All right, fine, Chief. We're sending vectors to you. You'll dock at emergency port A."

"See you in a few," Abe replied. He muted the channel and said to Luke, "I'm heading back to the cabin. Give us a minute's warning before you dock."

"Will do."

Abe went to the back of the cabin and opened a gun locker. He handed Norm a pistol and said, "In case they need persuading."

"You mean you don't think we can just ask them nicely?" he asked with a wry grin.

"I'm sure we could," he replied as he holstered his own weapon. "But that doesn't mean they'd play nice."

As with the _Event Horizon_, the crew of the _Johannes Kepler_ was both surprised and less than happy with the forced boarding. After a quick explanation of the situation, however, they cooperated with Abe's demands for them to turn back to Earth. Jose and Kim were taken to available cryo chambers, and offered little in the way of goodbyes.

On their way back to the shuttle, Abe raided the cargo bay for additional supplies: explosives. Norm stopped him and said, "Don't tell me all of your meticulous planning was just a ruse to blow the hell out of the place."

Abe chuckled and said, "No, but would you be sorry if it were?"

"Actually, yeah, just a little bit."

"Well, don't worry, then. These have a far less nefarious purpose."

Norm did not ask for clarification as they returned to the _Cybele_, and they monitored their scanners until they had confirmation that the _Johannes Kepler_ had engaged on its long voyage back to Earth.

"There's nothing left to do," Abe said to Norm. He looked out the windows of the command center and added, "But if you want to take a couple of minutes to say goodbye to Pandora, I don't think that will throw us terribly off schedule."

"I don't know that I have anything to say," Norm replied. "I didn't figure I'd be leaving it like this, though."

"Like how?"

"It feels like I've become an outcast of two worlds," he said. "I was turned away by the Na'vi, and then turned away by my friends while trying to do right by them. Back when I set out on all of this, I was hoping to leave here like a triumphant hero."

"We're not finished, yet," Abe replied. "There's still room for triumph. Besides, you're not the only one leaving here under unexpected circumstances."

Norm snorted and said, "No offense, Abe, but I think you have a bit more of a safety net than I do."

Abe took a deep breath and replied, "We'll see about that when we get home. A lot can happen before we get home."

"It'll have been twenty-four years since I left Earth," Norm said. "I'll have almost spent more time away from it than I did living there." He chuckled and said, "But you know what? I'm kind of eager to see what's happened to it."

"Here's hoping for the best," Abe replied with a short laugh. "Are you ready to get on with it?"

Norm took one more look out the windows of _Cybele_'s command center and nodded. "Yeah. Let's get on with it."

* * *

In the fading evening light, and from the uppermost of Hometree's branches, Jake was able to make out the twin plasma wakes – one significantly larger than the other – of what he hoped would be the last interstellar vehicles to ever orbit Pandora. In that moment, Jake thought of hundreds of things he wanted to say to his friend, but had forever lost the opportunity.

He looked around to make sure nobody saw him wipe away his tears.

Jake made his way to his hammock, where he found Neytiri already sleeping. Before crawling in beside her, he took a moment to ponder the life she was carrying. An immeasurable number of sacrifices had been made to not only give their child life, but to ensure its protection; and its future was still uncertain. It hinged squarely on whether or not his friend would be able to turn back the armada that was heading their way.

He lay beside Neytiri and thought about the long chain of events that had brought him to this moment. It went back further than Tom's murder. It was his decision to join the Marine Corps. It was the discovery of Pandora. It was the desperate search for ways to save the dying Earth. It was the collective failure of leadership to prevent catastrophe from befalling humanity in the first place.

With each of those landmarks, Jake wondered how things might have turned out with just the slightest changes in decision making. Tom, Grace, and Trudy might all still be alive, if they were born at all. Jake and Norm might have crossed paths some other way and become friends on a lush and vibrant Earth. Neytiri would be the mother of Tsu'tey's children.

For all the troubles that humanity occupied itself with, not one of them mattered at all to the Na'vi. Life here was determined to go on uninterrupted, regardless of the human incursions. The Na'vi as a whole were not better off for humanity's presence; but if Neytiri held any doubts about how her life would have ended up, as Jake was wondering now, she kept them well hidden.

Neytiri opened her eyes and turned to look at him. She smiled and brushed her hand over his cheek. "They are gone?"

He nodded. "They're gone."

Whether it was his tone of voice or her uncanny ability to see into him, or maybe lingering remnants of his tears, she understood what he really wanted to say. "I'm sorry he had to leave. He was a good friend of the people."

"Yeah," Jake replied. "He was."

Neytiri moved closer to Jake and embraced him, and he eagerly wrapped his arms around her. They did not need to say anything to each other. The years of intimate bonding they had shared had allowed them to know each other's thoughts by the subtle changes in their bodies – the color of the lights on their bodies and how brilliantly they glowed, the quickness of their heartbeats, and the pace of their breathing.

"You still have many friends here," Neytiri said to him.

He smiled, held her tighter, and replied, "I have a great one right here."

They stayed in each other's arms for a while longer. Eventually, Jake got past the traps of his thoughts and emotions and released her, albeit reluctantly. He brushed her cheek and asked, "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine," she replied. "Soon, though, I will need to move to the floor. I won't be able to safely walk down the branches much longer."

"Are you getting enough to eat?"

Neytiri laughed and said, "You worry like my mother."

He grinned and replied, "It's my child, too. I want to make sure its mother is healthy."

She poked him in the stomach and replied, "I can take care of my health _and_ the baby's without your worrying."

"I won't stop," he said with a grin, and then he took the opportunity to kiss her.

In between kisses, she said, "It's okay for you to worry about our first baby. But for the next one, I expect you to be strong."

"It's a deal," he said. "But I get to worry over the one after that."

She responded with a laugh, and then kissed him again. By the time they fell asleep together, Jake had not entirely put the thoughts of his friend out of his mind, but he was more secure in the path that he had chosen for himself. Jake's last thought before falling asleep was to hope Norm would ensure that his children would have the same security.


	7. Vessels

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

"It's been too long," Jake said, kneeling beside her. "Are you sure everything's okay?"

Neytiri glowered at him and replied, "Yes, Jake, for the eighth time, I'm fine."

She should have given birth almost two weeks earlier, at least by Jake's reckoning. Keeping an accurate account of time was something of a challenge in the absence of dramatic changes in the day-night cycle of Pandora, discernable seasons, or radio calls to Hell's Gate to check in with a calendar. Every once in a while he thought about making a sundial for the clan, but he knew neither how to make one nor if any of the people would pay particular attention to it. The people did not measure their lives in days – they did not even have birthday celebrations – but by their spiritual and physical growth, whether they were ready for rites of passage, and by which animals were migrating or plentiful.

Even if he could not pin down a specific time that Neytiri ought to have given birth, after years of serving as the Omaticaya's _olo'eyktan_, Jake had seen scores of pregnancies – one of his duties, indeed, was to preside over the birth. His time with the Omaticaya had allowed him to develop a good sense of what was a normal term, and what was not, and Neytiri's was not a normal term.

Not long after Norm had left with Abe's team to carry the fight for Pandora's future to Earth, Neytiri asked to be moved into an alcove at Hometree's floor, as she no longer felt comfortable walking high among the branches. Normally, a Na'vi woman would give birth within a matter of days after moving from her hammock, but that had not happened for Neytiri.

Jake felt he had a right to worry; however, Neytiri did her best to ease his concerns. "Many women are pregnant for a long time with their first babies," she said. "Mother was pregnant for a long time with my sister."

He frowned and replied, "It can't be comfortable for you, though. And if you're not comfortable, the baby…"

"Jake," Neytiri interrupted, her eyes narrowing, "I'm going to give birth. _That_ is not going to be comfortable. Everything else is irrelevant."

He could not come up with a response to that.

Jake sat beside her and took her hand in his. "You'd let me know if you were concerned, right?"

"I'm concerned about _you_," she replied. "There is nothing you can do to change this. The baby will be born when it is time, and it is not time." She smiled and kissed his hand. "Be patient, Jake."

"I'm trying," he replied with a grin. "It's just that my mind keeps thinking of ways that things can go wrong."

"What is your heart telling you?"

Jake took a deep breath and said, "My heart says to trust you."

Neytiri leaned over and kissed his cheek in response.

"There is something we haven't talked about, though, that's weighed on my mind _and_ my heart."

She raised her brow. "Oh?"

"The baby's name." He held up a hand to preempt her objection and said, "I know it's tradition to wait until the birth, and I'm okay with that. But I was hoping we could talk about other traditions when it comes to the name itself."

Neytiri appeared confused and asked, "What other tradition is there?"

Jake scratched behind his ear and replied, "Sky People sometimes – oftentimes – name their children after people they admire, or people they want to honor. I was wondering if we could talk about some of those names."

"You want to name our child after a Sky Person?" she asked, and her tone was less curious than it was incredulous.

"Not _any_ Sky Person," he said, hoping that would preempt her concerns. "Or maybe even a Na'vi."

"Jake, each person is named for the signs at his or her birth in order to celebrate the uniqueness of their character," she replied. He frowned; and she must have picked up on his deeper disappointment, because she sighed and asked, "But what names did you have in mind?"

"If it's a boy, I was thinking Tom, Norm, Tsu'Tey, or Eytukan," he offered. "And if it's a girl, Grace, Trudy, or Sylwanin." When she did not appear to be persuaded, he looked away and said, "But we don't know what the signs will be, so—," his voice trailed off.

Neytiri took a deep breath and looked down at her stomach, then gently ran her hand over it. "Those are good names," she eventually said. "They are – they were – good people." She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. "I will think about them along with Eywa's omens."

He kissed her cheek. "Thank you."

Days later, Neytiri went into labor. Despite her pain, she insisted on following the tradition of giving birth along the riverbank. Dutifully, Jake took her into his arms and led the procession. Along the way, he recalled the only delivery he had been a part of on Earth.

It was shortly before he shipped out to basic training, right after his high school graduation. One of his closer friends had become pregnant during their senior year. Her parents were so disapproving of the affair that they refused to be present when she gave birth, and so she asked him to be there for moral support. He obliged her, but the hospital staff refused him admission to the delivery room. Instead, he was taken to a reception room and seated before a video monitor so he could watch the birth remotely.

The camera was positioned overhead and was of such poor quality that Jake could not tell at first if he was watching his friend or not. When he realized that, in fact, he was not viewing his friend's room, he tried to get a nurse to correct the situation; but none was available – or cared. Instead, he waited until a hospital staffer came back and informed him of the successful delivery, and then abruptly told him that he was free to leave the hospital.

"I'll be sure to tell your sister you stayed, though," the nurse had said as she turned to leave. "Most people don't."

"It's not my sister, it's my friend," Jake had curtly replied.

"You have a good day, too."

The Na'vi took much greater interest in childbirth; and throughout Neytiri's pregnancy, many of the people asked to be present for the moment Neytiri gave birth. Indeed, of the many deliveries Jake presided over as _olo'eyktan_, there were typically twenty or thirty people present. However, since this was the birth of his and their _tsahik_'s child, hundreds walked behind Jake and Neytiri.

He was both touched by the outpouring of support and very unnerved by how public the event had become. Neytiri seemed to share his emotions, as between breaths she said, "I didn't think we agreed to have this many people attend."

"They're just excited," he replied.

She looked up at him and asked, "Are you worried?"

He kissed her forehead and said, "No. You're doing great."

They arrived at the river without incident, and they found a shallow pool where Neytiri could be seated comfortably. Jake had already asked Nakllte to preside over the ceremony, along with Mo'at, since he had to participate as the father. He sat behind her, holding on to her shoulders, while two midwifes took their appropriate positions. The rest of the clan stood behind them.

While Nakllte and Mo'at led the crowd in songs, Jake did his best to provide support for Neytiri, even though he felt particularly helpless in the matter. At times, however, Neytiri would have enough of a moment of clarity to reassure him that his efforts, small as they were compared to the midwifes', were welcomed.

Neytiri's labor had begun shortly before sunrise, and it was well into the afternoon when, at long last, one of the midwifes announced, "You have a son, _Tsahik_."

Jake was beside himself with joy, and despite her pain, Neytiri managed to smile. "Let me hold him," she said, even though her arms were already, instinctively, outstretched, and the midwife was handing their son over to her. "What signs do you see, Mother?" she asked Mo'at, although her eyes, like Jake's, were fixed squarely on their child.

"There are many great signs, daughter," Mo'at replied. "Eywa, like all the people, is celebrating your son's birth."

After a while, Neytiri handed their son to Jake, who proudly took him into his arms. The baby's eyes were still closed, but he responded positively to Jake's voice, as though he knew instinctively that his father was speaking to him. "Welcome to the world," he said. He smiled and added, "I think you look more like your mother, but that's not a bad thing."

He stood and reluctantly handed his son to Mo'at, so she could read his signs better. Before she carried on with the ceremony, however, she smiled broadly and took a moment to be a grandmother, cooing over his child.

Although Jake did not mind her display of affection, he quietly spoke into her ear, "I think the people have been waiting here long enough." She nodded, picking up on his hint to carry on with the ceremony, and began to note the many signs of nature, and his body, that indicated the kind of person he would grow up to be.

It was at this point that one of the midwives said, "There is a lot of blood."

Jake and Mo'at turned, brows raised, but it was Mo'at who said, "That is not one of the omens I see, friend."

"No, great mother, _there is a lot of blood_," she repeated, taking care to enunciate her words. Jake noticed that her eyes were wide with concern, and he immediately went back to the pool.

"Neytiri, are you okay?"

"Jake?" she asked faintly.

He got into the pool and held her, immediately noting that her pulse was weak and she was having trouble keeping her head up. "Neytiri, talk to me," he pleaded.

"We have a son," she said.

He nodded and replied with a smile. "We do. We have a beautiful, healthy son."

She took a shallow breath, closed her eyes and said, "Don't worry so much, Jake. You're going to be a good father."

"You're going to be a good mother," he replied. She leaned over, and her head fell onto his shoulder. He put a hand on her cheek and, his voice beginning to crack, said, "Neytiri?"

She did not respond.

"Neytiri!"

* * *

Her last conscious thought was that she had to nail the turn in order to regain the lead, and then everything went black. Everything was still black, as she was unable to open her eyes.

Natalie knew she was in the hospital, however. Some of her earliest memories involved the sounds of hospital equipment. They were almost as familiar to her as her parents' voices – or her mom's at least. She had not heard her dad's voice in more than four years, the last time he was able to speak with her from Pandora.

More than anything, she wanted to feel him holding her now, like he would during her long hospital stays when she was young. Natalie would also settle for being able to feel _anything_, or to be able to move anything. Despite her best efforts, however, she found herself in a state of total paralysis.

She could still hear, however, and she patiently waited to hear something other than the beeps and clicks of machinery in her room.

Natalie had no way of knowing how long passed before she heard the footsteps. "Missus Scheller?" an older man's voice asked. She assumed he was a doctor, and so he had to know her condition. If she could chide him for being oblivious, she would have.

However, she was surprised when she heard her mother reply, "Yes?"

She must have fallen asleep, or was just keeping a silent vigil over her.

"I have the results of the scans," the doctor continued. "Would you like to go over them here, or—?"

"Here's fine," her mom insisted. "I'm not leaving my daughter."

"I understand." There was a pause before he continued, "The A-T-R-T in Natalie's spine has had about a ten percent increase in mass since her last scan, but we don't think that's what's caused her condition."

_Ten percent?!_ Natalie asked – to herself, she quickly realized.

Her mom, however, was not so limited. "A ten percent increase?!" she asked incredulously. "How the hell does a tumor grow that quickly? It's been stable for seven years! It was fine at her last check-up."

"Well, ma'am, it's been eight months since Natalie got a check-up," the doctor replied in a tone that a parent might use to gently scold a child. "She should be coming in _at most_ once every three months."

"And if we could afford it, she would," her mom shot back.

Natalie never received details of how her father was abruptly fired, thus costing the Schellers their health insurance. Whatever happened, however, had set of a string of legal battles that quickly drained their financial resources, even though every suit RDA brought forward was ultimately thrown out of court.

Per the law, Natalie's mom purchased health insurance, but it only covered one check-up per year without copayments; and those were only basic visits. The kind of specialty care Natalie required mostly had to come out-of-pocket.

Her mom had taken a consulting job shortly after they learned Dad was fired, and she tried to assure Natalie that money, while tight, was not a problem. This was the first time she heard otherwise.

"All the same," the doctor said, apparently unfazed by her mother's sharp tone, "we might have been able to catch its growth, and the metastasizing, sooner."

_Oh fuck_._ Please, God, no_.

"It's metastasized?"

"We've detected it in her lung, and a new, smaller growth farther up her brainstem, which is what we believe caused her to collapse into her present condition."

_God, please_.

The silence seemed to last forever. "Is there anything you can do?"

"Surgery is an option for the new growths," the doctor replied. "Treating the lung should be easy enough, but obviously the brainstem presents a number of challenges."

_I turn nineteen in two months. I got accepted early to Berkeley_.

"Obviously, but can you get it?"

"We have one of the best surgical teams in the country," the doctor replied. "But, still, it's dangerous, especially given the condition she's already in."

"My daughter's fine, doctor," her mom countered. "Just get rid of these tumors, and she'll be fine."

The doctor was having none of her mom's emotional pleas. "Missus Scheller, other than the fact that your daughter is currently comatose…"

_Don't talk to my mom like that, you fuck! Don't talk about _me_ like that!_

"…we expect that, if she recovers, she is going to have severely impacted motor functions. We can probably repair them, but that will take several operations."

_So do it!_

"So do it!" her mom shouted. "Let me approve the necessary forms, and get started."

"Can you afford it?"

"I have insurance. What does it matter?"

The doctor sighed. "Natalie was enrolled in a clinical trial for her A-T-R-T, correct?"

She was until, a little over a year after her father was fired, RDA purchased the laboratory where the research was being conducted and promptly shut down the trial.

"Yes, and it ended two years ago."

"But you kept purchasing the medicines that were part of the trial's regimen, correct?"

"They were working, so of course I did."

"We've already spoken with your insurance company," the doctor said, "and they're considering this episode to be the result of experimental medicine undertaken without proper medical oversight, which they're not obligated to cover."

There was another long silence, and then her mother began to laugh. "So what the fuck is the point of having government-mandated health insurance if it won't cover you when you need it?! This is part of my daughter's pre-existing condition, and it's illegal for them to not cover it."

"They disagree," the doctor replied flatly. "And they won't cover any procedures until they're given evidence to the contrary."

"How long will that take?"

"Longer than she has, given what we're seeing now."

_You're wrong!_

"No," her mother said after a pause, her voice beginning to crack. "No, I'll call them. We'll get it sorted out, and they'll cover it." She took a deep breath before she continued. "In the meantime, yes, I can pay for whatever needs to be done."

The doctor might have replied with something else that was emotionally detached from the situation at hand, but someone else entered the room. "No you won't, Krysta."

Natalie recognized his voice, and she calmed down.

"Who are you, sir?" the doctor asked.

"Thomas Walsh," he replied. "I'll be sure your administrators get my financial information to cover the Schellers' expenses, so get to work on whatever you need to do."

Doctor Walsh, she knew, was her mom's father-in-law from her first marriage and one of her father's colleagues at RDA. Natalie did not know why he continued to take a liking to her after she divorced his son and remarried, but he had been a foundation in Natalie's life for as far back as she could remember. After her dad left, Tom did his best to keep them up-to-date on his progress. Those updates stopped after her dad's termination, however, and then Tom became a source of moral and, she was beginning to figure, financial support.

"Tom, you can't…" her mother began.

"Like hell I can't," he interrupted. "Do you need me to say it again, Doctor? Quit standing there and get to work on my granddaughter!"

_Your granddaughter?_

"Yes, sir," the doctor replied, Natalie took some pleasure in the sound of his hurried exit.

"Your granddaughter?" her mom asked with a short laugh. "You're not becoming senile, are you, Tom?"

He chuckled and said, "No, but it got his ass moving." He took a breath and asked, "How is she? I got here as soon as I could."

_I can't move and I can't talk, Uncle, but other than that—_.

"She was in her next to final lap, when all of a sudden she stopped at the wall and just—," her mom's voice faded as it sounded like she was fighting back tears. "She's been doing so well, Tom."

"Shh. Hey, c'mon, there's nothing you could have done differently," Tom said. "It's just one of those things."

"No, Tom, it's not," her mom replied. "Cancer was beaten before even you were born, and neither Abe nor I have a family history. This shouldn't be happening."

Tom sighed and said, "It's never really been 'beaten,' just identified and suppressed with better medicine. Additionally, we're finding now that kids who underwent pre-natal genetic therapy have higher rates of cancer or mutations than their family histories would predict."

_I was screened?_

"So this is our fault?"

"No! Jesus, Krysta, you can't think that. No, it's not your fault, and she's going to survive this."

"I just—," she sighed. "Goddammit, Tom, why is Savage doing this to us? What the fuck did Abe do up there to piss him off?"

_Did he hurt the Na'vi?_

"I'm sure he didn't do anything," Tom replied. "Parker saw an opportunity, and he jumped on it."

_Who's Parker?_

"Do you think he's really dead, or is he just 'dead' like Abe?"

_Dad's dead?! Or, wait, what do mean by 'dead _like_'?_

"Yeah, I'm sure Parker got what he deserved. But still, let's say Parker wasn't embellishing the facts, and Abe had gone over to the Na'vi's side…"

_Dad was supposed to be working _against_ the Na'vi?_

"…that would be enough to push Savage over the edge."

"And to retaliate against a teenage cancer patient," her mom replied with a snort. "That makes plenty of sense."

"It doesn't have to make sense when you have the kind of power he does."

"I know that," she replied. "Believe me, I worked for the prick long enough to know that."

_Can you guys get back to my dad and the Na'vi, please?_

"Listen, Krysta, it's going to be okay. You just have to hold on for a while longer."

"How much longer, Tom? And why are you so confident?"

"Other than the guy from those years ago who knew Abe's code phrases to have me to get in touch with you?" There was a pause, and then Tom took a deep breath and said, "Right now Savage is getting updates from Pandora by some woman who he thinks is the head of the engineering corps, but I remember her from thirty years ago when she volunteered for the Avatar program." He chuckled and said, "She's a real bitch – that's no act – and she's got Savage running in circles. But her story's too neat, too scripted. It's got Abe's fingerprints all over it."

"So you think he has a plan?" There was another pause, and then her mom laughed and said, "Listen to me ask. Of course he has a plan! When doesn't he?"

_Who are you two talking about?_

"I'm sure you're looking forward to it as much as I am." Another pause. "I'm going to head to the administrative section and make sure they have my financials, and then I am going to have to head back to work. Keep me informed – don't worry about interrupting me."

"I will – and I won't," she replied. "Thank you, Tom, for everything."

"It's my pleasure." Another pause. "Hang in there, Nat. Everything's going to be fine."

_Thank you, Uncle, but I'm going to have a shit-ton of questions for you when I get out of this._


	8. Kansas City Shuffle

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – As usual, I've been terrible about responding to your messages and reviews. However, they do mean a lot to me, and I thank you for them. When I can set the time aside, I'll be getting back to you.

* * *

The _Cybele_ was originally a prototype, second generation, planetary scout vehicle. Whereas the first generation of scout craft were built on Earth and launched about the solar system without human guidance, the _Cybele_ was constructed in Earth's orbit and designed for a human crew. RDA intended to build a small fleet of similar crafts in the Alpha Centauri system in order to thoroughly explore its other worlds; each craft would act as an orbiting command center for satellites and robotic probes while human teams would make expeditions to and from the surface.

Another key feature of this generation of scout vehicles was the modular design. If a mission team discovered that it needed additional or adjusted capabilities, orbital construction vehicles could disassemble and then reassemble the ship with other modules as necessary.

Abe exploited the _Cybele_'s modular construction when RDA gave him a blank check to fund its return mission to Pandora. The _Cybele_'s original propulsion was replaced with the kind intended for RDA's interstellar ships and stripped out excess cargo holds. The much smaller mass of the main ship allowed the thrust generated by the engines to propel the craft significantly faster than the interstellar vehicles they were designed for.

However, the _Cybele_ also required longer periods of acceleration and deceleration than the interstellar vehicles, as the same forces which pushed the ship to almost nine-tenths the speed of light also threatened to rip its hull and truss framework apart if applied too quickly. Nine days before entering Earth's orbit, as far away from Earth as the ancient and long-silent _Voyager I_ spacecraft, the _Cybele_ began its deceleration.

Four days later, the _Cybele_ was beyond the Sun's bow shock. After another three days, the ship was inside Pluto's orbit. Upon reaching this point in its journey, the ship's central computer initiated its preprogrammed sequence to release Abe from his cryogenic sleep.

The straps holding him in place decoupled, and the needles were automatically retracted from his body. He took a moment to let the oppressive headache which resulted from the cocktail of chemicals his body had been infused with for five years subside; but a moment very quickly became an hour. Abe went to the cryobay's control terminal and released Luke from his stasis.

"Rise and shine," Abe said with a smirk. "There's work to do."

Luke kept his eyes closed as he rubbed his forehead and groaned. "I forgot about this part," he said. "But now I'm remembering it way too well."

"Is it true you guys never came up with a good beer up there?"

"We came up with one," he replied as he forced himself to his feet. "It was good, but it nearly killed us. Why?"

"It's just hard to believe that this is your first hangover in decades."

"Well, it is." He finally opened his eyes and asked, "So what do we need to do?"

Abe and Luke spent the day going through the ship's schematics. They were looking for failure points in order to trip the emergency beacon without seriously endangering either the crew or the ship. With Scott dead and Kim traveling home on the _Johannes Kepler_, Luke and Abe were the closest people left who could be considered qualified engineers.

One day later, as the ship passed Saturn, and with the failure points rigged with explosives, the rest of the team was brought out of cryo. However, there was one complication. "Tseyo's not waking up," Norm said.

Following a moment of panic among the team, they got him to the medical bay for Max and Matthew's inspection. "He's still in good shape," Max declared. "But putting a Na'vi in cryo isn't what I'd call an exact science. It may just take a while longer for his body to get over the drugs."

"How long?" Abe asked. "We're going to be in Earth's orbit in under a day."

"Like I said, it's not an exact science," Max replied. "It could be in five minutes, or it could be in five hours." He shrugged and added, "He could be a vegetable."

Seven hours later, just before the _Cybele_ passed through Jupiter's orbit, Tseyo woke up – and he had some very harsh words for Norm. When prompted later, Norm told Abe, "Apparently it took longer for the drugs to get him to sleep, too. Those E-E-G spikes we saw were him freaking out."

Abe's eyes widened as a genuine horror overcame him. "Don't tell me he was awake for the whole trip."

Norm shook his head and replied, "No, he was knocked out, but he got the full force of the drugs before he went under." He sighed and said, "He was pissed at me because he didn't think I had prepared him enough for that."

Abe snorted and replied, "It's not like you could have expected it to go wrong." He shook his head and asked, "Anyway, where is he now? Still in medical?"

"No, we set him up in that stateroom at the ship's aft so he could calm down, and maybe he can get some normal sleep."

"Everybody should get some rest once their stuff is stowed in the shuttle," Abe said. "It's going to be a very long day from when we enter Earth's orbit."

"Before that," Norm said, "there's one thing I wanted to talk to you about."

"Fire away."

"You've still got your infiltrator in cryo."

"Devon?" Norm nodded. "What about him?"

"What are you going to do with him?"

Abe chuckled and said, "You've seen his vitals. There's nothing we can do with him."

"Unless you're going to leave him on the ship for the rest of time, you're going to have to do something with him," Norm replied.

"The recovery team will probably evacuate him and send him to a hospital," Abe said with a shrug. "Maybe medicine has advanced enough that he'll make a full recovery."

"And that's it?" Norm asked with a degree of incredulity. "He kills someone, and you're going to give him a free pass?"

"The Devon in that cryochamber didn't kill anybody," Abe said. "He can't be held accountable for that girl's death."

"Why not?"

Abe hesitated before he responded, not sure if he was, in fact, being pressed on this point. He responded slowly, "Because he didn't do it."

"Maybe not in that body," Norm replied, "but you know he's capable of it."

"He was a Special Forces soldier," Abe said. "I don't want to know a fraction of what he's capable of. But no, Norm, I'm not going to have him arrested for murder – especially given the fact that the person who was responsible for that girl's death was himself killed. I consider it a closed case."

"I wonder what Tseyo would think about that."

Abe stepped to within inches of Norm and said sternly, "You don't mention one word about this to him. Not one. We don't need to have his performance compromised right now."

Norm pushed him away and said, "I was just speaking hypothetically, Abe. I get your point. Besides, he may already be compromised."

Brushing off Norm's push, Abe said, "Yeah, I can imagine the way he went to sleep was a trip, but…"

"No," Norm interrupted. "He brought something spiritual with him, and it didn't survive in cryo. It probably suffocated in the stasis gas."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Na'vi consider these particular seeds, woodsprites, to be close to the embodiment of Eywa, short of actually connecting to the planet's semi-sentient, biochemical network," Norm said. "The fact that it's now dead has him more than a little unnerved. It's not the best omen."

"So tell him to get over it," Abe replied. "Tell him that he shouldn't have expected a seed to live for five years."

"It's not about the seed," Norm said impatiently. "It's about the spiritual connection to Eywa."

"You did tell him that Eywa isn't on Earth, right?"

"Of course," Norm said. "And that's probably why he brought the seed."

Abe shook his head and replied, "Well, you're his mentor, Norm. Introduce him to God or something to resolve his spiritual crisis, and then tell him to get over it."

Norm raised an eyebrow. "You're a Believer?"

"No," Abe scoffed. "Are you?"

"No."

"Huh," Abe said with a grin. "We have something in common. Who knew?"

"I'm thrilled," Norm replied. "Anyway, I'll do what I can for Tseyo; but humor me and pretend to care about his feelings."

* * *

Abe had given Norm and the others eight hours to rest up, but few of them had managed to take full advantage of it. A combination of nervousness and less-than accommodating spaces in the crew quarters meant that they had a fairly restless sleep. Norm in particular had spent most of his allotted time ensuring Tseyo had calmed down, and so was the last one of the team to retire for a few hours of sleep.

Eighty million kilometers from Earth, Abe roused the team and had them assemble in the command center.

"ICA's regulations require that we get boarded and inspected before being allowed to dock with a space station for transportation back to Earth," Abe said. He smiled and, with a nod to Tseyo said, "Obviously, we'd fail inspection."

The team chuckled, although Tseyo did not understand the joke when Norm translated it for him.

"The only way we're going to get down to Earth directly from this ship without having a myriad of authorities hot on our tails is with an emergency evacuation," he continued. "So, the day before all of you were brought out of cryo, Luke and I were busy making sure an emergency would happen."

"What kind of emergency?" Norm asked.

"Assuming we didn't screw up the charges," Abe replied, "there won't be one. We'll just trip the beacon to make it look like we're in distress."

"Charges?" Amy asked. "Are either you or Luke explosives experts?"

"No."

Everyone was silent for a few seconds. Norm shook his head and replied, "So we just have to trust that you aren't going to blow us all up."

"If any of you are explosives experts, I'll be happy to take you through the ship to reset the charges," Abe said. Nobody stepped forward to offer their services. "There's your answer, Norm."

"This can't be the only way," Max offered. "There has to be a safer way down to the surface."

Abe shook his head. "ICA reentry regulations are very specific. Except with pre-approved clearance or an emergency, all incoming ships have to be inspected before they can dock with an intermediary station, and from there the crews are cleared to return to Earth. Since RDA didn't pre-clear this flight with ICA, we're subject to those regulations."

"Can't you just declare an emergency?" Matthew asked. "Why do you have to risk blowing the ship up?"

"In about six minutes, we're going to pass through Mars' tracking net, which is going to put ICA's posts on Earth and the Moon on notice," Abe explained. "Once we're within twenty-million kilometers of Earth, in about three hours, we'll be under constant observation for any signs of physical distress. If our emergency beacon isn't activated by then, they may not buy the ruse."

"Won't they just board us anyway?" Norm asked. "They won't let an unmanned ship orbit Earth."

"Yes, but they won't expect us to wait for that team. We'll be cleared to use our shuttle to return to Earth."

"Where are we landing?" Dawn asked. "Obviously we can't use a normal spaceport."

"We'll make a crash landing outside San Francisco, and then make our way to a safehouse to gather the supplies and intel we'll need to launch the main operation."

"And RDA is just going to accept that one of its ships just so happened to come back from Pandora ahead of schedule, launched a shuttle, and then—?" Max asked, his voice trailing off for Abe to fill in the blank.

"We'll let them think whatever they want," Abe replied. "Whatever they think, they'll work with ICA to keep the crash under wraps until they have a cover story in place." He sighed and shook his head, "Look, folks, this is where the danger _really_ begins. I don't have every contingency covered, so don't be surprised if I don't have an answer right away. You're just going to have to accept that we're going to have to think and move at the same time."

"It'd be nice to have more assurances than that we _might not_ get blown up in this ship," Norm said. "And that we _might not_ crash and die in an emergency landing, and that we _might not_ get discovered by an RDA hit squad or ICA before we have a chance to put our plans into action."

Abe shrugged and replied, "I don't have them."

"Wonderful."

Abe brushed him off and continued, "In two hours, everybody's going to board the shuttle, and we're going to detonate the charges. If we do manage to actually compromise the ship's integrity, then the shuttle should offer us a measure of protection." He paused to wait for acknowledgements, and then said, "All right, go check your gear one last time."

At the appointed time, the crew gathered in the shuttle. As with their trip to the _Cybele_, Tseyo was relegated to the floor – except this time around, he sat upright against the back of the shuttle. He looked at Norm and, in his native tongue, said with a smile, "Maybe this way I won't have to grab your leg."

Norm chuckled and replied, "It's still sore, you know." Tseyo's smile broadened. Norm shook his head and then, more seriously, asked, "How are you feeling?"

"Nervous," he said candidly. "All of this is still very strange to me."

Norm nodded and replied, "If it helps, this is strange to the rest of us, too." Tseyo frowned in response.

At that moment, Abe boarded the shuttle and sealed the door behind him. He had his tablet in hand and called up an application. "Everybody get your masks on," he said. He activated the intercom to the cockpit and asked, "Luke, are you ready?"

"I'm good, Abel. The shuttle's comms are up and running," he said. "If we need to, we can launch right away."

Norm noted to himself that they were more than twenty-five million kilometers from Earth. If the _Cybele_ was torn apart by the explosions – which he considered a real possibility, given Abe and Luke's inexperience – and managed to get a distress call to a lunar or Martian outpost, they would have at least a day to wait before a slower, fusion-powered intrasolar ship could rescue them.

And if the shuttle was also damaged in the explosion, it simply would not matter.

"All right," Abe replied. "We're blowing them in three, two, one," and then Abe tapped a button on his screen.

The sharp crack of the explosion gave all of them a scare, and they felt the shuttle vibrate somewhat violently. A couple of moments passed before Luke called over the intercom, "We're picking up the _Cybele_'s emergency beacon, but we're not detecting any structural damage."

Everybody seemed to exhale at the same moment, and then Amy said, "You got lucky."

"Hopefully we didn't use up all of our luck," Abe replied as he entered the cockpit. "We're going to need a lot more."

The team was silent after Abe closed the door behind him. After a few minutes of this silence had passed, Tseyo asked, "Is this normal behavior?"

"Is what normal behavior?" Norm replied.

"All of you are just sitting here, quiet," he said. "Is it normal for Sky People to be together and not say anything?"

"We're just waiting," Norm said with a shrug. "There isn't anything to say."

Tseyo shook his head. "There is always something to say when you're among friends."

Norm smiled weakly and replied, "We're not all friends, Tseyo."

"But we all have a common purpose, right?"

"Right."

Tseyo nodded. "When I undertook _Iknimaya_, my partners were not my closest friends. But we were friendly with each other, because we were all doing something important together." He looked down and added, "Because it might have been the last time we got to talk to anybody."

Norm was thinking about his response when Dawn, one of Abe's xenolinguists, asked, "What did you all talk about?"

Tseyo looked up, clearly surprised that another human was speaking in his native language. He looked at Norm as if to ask whether he should respond, and Norm just shrugged. Tseyo turned to Dawn and replied, "We talked about how quickly we would make the bond with _ikran_, about the warriors we would impress…"

"The women you would impress?" she asked with a grin.

Tseyo laughed and said, "Maybe we would have. But women were part of my group, and none of them were ones who I would have named. I did not want to hurt their feelings, so I stayed quiet about that."

Matthew leaned forward in his seat and asked, "So, do you guys want to let the rest of us in on the conversation?"

* * *

Outside the shuttle, the _Cybele_'s corridors were lit by emergency lights. The airlock doors had closed, sealing the shuttle bay from the rest of the ship. Because of the failure points they had tripped with their explosives, the scanners had no way of knowing whether or not there was actually a hull breach; but that would be something for a recovery team to worry about.

Dawn had routed the _Cybele_'s primary communications to the shuttle in the few hours before she had retired with the others for a recuperative sleep. Several hours after the team boarded the shuttle, and well after they had entered the tracking range of Earth's stations, they got their first alert to open communications with Earth.

Abe activated the intercom and paused when he heard laughter on the other end. He had figured the team was too apprehensive for humor; but he listened to their conversation for a little while longer. He figured it was better that they were in good spirits.

"Sorry to interrupt, folks," he said, "but we're coming into radio range of Earth. We'll declare our emergency, and then hopefully be able to descend to the surface. So get locked down if you aren't already."

He switched over to the primary communications channel. A pre-recorded message provided instructions to open a direct line with a spaceflight tracking station. Abe did as instructed and did not hesitate to say, "Mayday, mayday. This is the _Cybele_ declaring an emergency."

"_Cybele_, this is ICA Station Three," a woman replied. "We see your beacon has activated. Please describe the nature of your emergency."

"ICA Three, our hull has been compromised. I have my crew secured for an emergency disembarkation to Earth."

"Negative, _Cybele_," she said. "Protocol is to have you dock with a recovery ship."

"Since when?"

"That's irrelevant, _Cybele_," she replied. "It's protocol."

"ICA Three, trace our trajectory and check our ship's log," Abe said. "You'll see we're coming from Pandora, having left Earth well over ten years ago. By law, you have to allow us to follow the regulations that were in place at the time of our departure."

"That law does not apply to emergencies, _Cybele_. You are cleared to disembark your crew, but your shuttle will be given vectors to a recovery ship. Acknowledge, _Cybele_."

Abe and Luke exchanged a glance, and both of them shook their heads. "Negative, ICA Three. We'll take our chances."

"_Cybele_, you will face fines of up to two-million dollars and or five years in prison for non-compliance," the woman said. "This is your final warning, _Cybele_. Acknowledge that you will rendezvous with a designated recovery vessel."

"_Cybele_ acknowledges your final warning, ICA Three," Abe replied. "I have a responsibility for the safety of my crew, however, so you and your penalties can go to Hell."

Abe cut his side of the communication, but he kept the channel open to monitor ICA's traffic.

"That just made this a lot more interesting," Luke said. "I've always wanted to see a police chase in space."

Although the _Cybele_ was still decelerating in preparation for entering into an orbit around Earth, it would be operating at speeds well beyond the capacity of ICA's fusion-powered fleet to match for many more minutes. Even if their fleet did catch up to the _Cybele_ by the time the shuttle deployed, they would not be able to give chase through Earth's atmosphere. At best, they could have local authorities on stand-by to capture them once they were on the ground, but Abe had no intentions of letting them get that close.

"Unless they've invented tractor beams, I'm not too worried," Abe replied. "How long before we're face-to-face with the fuzz?"

"Twenty-five minutes," Luke said. "We just crossed the Moon's orbit." Abe started to chuckle, prompting Luke to ask, "Is there something funny about that?"

"Yeah, actually," Abe replied. "I was just about to complain about how long of a time that was, when it occurred to me that the first guys had to wait three days to get from one place to the other. I guess I'm spoiled."

Luke snorted and said, "Someday people will be wondering how we could be patient enough to wait five years to get to Pandora. Every generation after your own is spoiled by your standards. We're not doing our jobs if they aren't."

The rest of the time passed without another word spoken between the two. Once they were in Earth's orbit, Luke opened _Cybele_'s hatch, and the shuttle dropped away from the ship.

Outside the cockpit window, one-thousand kilometers below the shuttle, Australia was basking in a summer's mid-morning. Abe compared the continent to those he had seen on Pandora, and despite the emotions he harbored for that world, his heart sank. As the ship passed over the continent at more than seven kilometers per second, Abe could see a large dust storm moving from the Outback towards the eastern coast, whose greenery had all but disappeared.

He could not conceive of such a sight on Pandora.

In the meantime, Luke entered the coordinates for the San Francisco spaceport, and the shuttle began to orient itself for reentry. As they passed just south of Brisbane, Luke said, "Five minutes until we hit atmospheric reentry." Abe just nodded.

The shuttle crossed the Kármán line above what used to be American Samoa, back before sea level rise, the deaths of the coral reefs, and more frequent and intense storms eroded the islands into the ocean. From there, the shuttle raced towards North America at more than twenty times the speed of sound.

It took a while, but Abe began to notice how quickly the sky began to darken as they raced away from the Sun and traveled further into the short days of winter. When they reached the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula some forty minutes later, night had fallen outside the shuttle.

The autopilot made a sharp turn towards the northwest at the peninsula, at which point Luke disengaged it. "All right, Abe, I've got the ship. What are we doing now?"

"Maintain the deceleration and correct your heading one point five degrees to the east," he replied as he reviewed the shuttle's navigation instruments. It did not take a full minute before the controllers who were watching the shuttle's descent picked up on the course correction and began to insist the shuttle return to the earlier course.

"_Cybele_ shuttle, be advised that you will _miss_ Alameda Station on your current heading," one controller said.

"_Cybele_ shuttle, high risk of encountering adverse landing conditions following three-two-seven-point-six degrees," another insisted. "Please engage the vectors being transmitted to you."

Yet another was more to the point. "Turn on your autopilot, _Cybele_ shuttle."

Luke chuckled at the traffic. "Man, they really want us alive to slap that two-million dollar fine, don't they?"

"I think they're angrier that we're about to buzz San Diego and Los Angeles at Mach two," Abe replied with a grin.

To Abe's disappointment, they were subsonic by the time they reached San Diego, traveling east of its downtown center at three-hundred meters per second. Twenty-eight seconds later, they shot over downtown Los Angeles at two-hundred meters per second. The journey was so fast that Abe could barely perceive the different cities, even considering that the two southern California cities had become a single, poorly integrated megalopolis many decades ago.

"We're losing speed and altitude fast, Abe," Luke said, a trace of unease in his voice. "Tell me where you want to put this thing down so I can engage thrusters."

"The target should be on your heads-up display," Abe replied. "And don't worry about losing speed. If it's all the same to you, I don't want to crash land too quickly."

Luke turned to him, his eyes wide. "You actually want me to crash the shuttle? I thought that was just a figure of speech!"

"They aren't going to think we're all dead if they find a perfectly landed shuttle," Abe replied. "Yes, we're going to crash land."

Luke was quiet for a moment, his face ashen, and then he said, "I don't think we're going to have to fake it." He got on the intercom and said, "Hold on to your asses, people, we're making a very hard landing."

Seconds later, city lights gave way to a dark landscape. The shuttle had automatically engaged night vision, allowing Abe and Luke to discern the hills and valleys of the Diablo Range as they hurtled towards the ground.

"Find something that looks soft, and then do your best," Abe said.

Luke snorted. "Soft. Yeah, okay, Abe, I'll aim for a fucking mattress store."

A few seconds later, Abe spotted an opportunity. "One-o-clock. Do you see that valley?"

"Got it," Luke replied as he oriented the ship to line up with the to-be landing strip. "Hold on to something."

Even though they had slowed to under seventy kilometers per hour, an imperceptible crawl compared to the speeds they were travelling at less than an hour earlier, the shuttle's impact felt to Abe as though they might as well have been travelling at a higher speed. The craft skidded along the ground to a cacophonous sound of metal tearing apart dry soil – or soil tearing apart metal, Abe was not entirely sure – occasionally skipping back into the air before crashing down again.

Abe did his best to not panic.

When the event stopped, Abe took a number of deep breaths to ensure that he was still alive. He did not feel much pain other than a headache, and he soon noticed that the ship's electronics were dead.

He looked over to Luke, who was bent forward and holding his head. "Are you okay?"

"Hit my fucking head," he said. He looked at Abe and, although he was trying to be stoic, his eyes betrayed no small amount of fear. "Does it look bad?"

When Luke removed his hand, Abe saw plenty of blood, but nothing that looked like serious trauma. "Doctor Patel or Cook will be able to patch you up," Abe replied. "Assuming they're still alive." Luke gave him the finger, and Abe grinned.

When he went back to the passenger bay, he was greeted with a number of harsh opinions about the landing. He only had one concern, however. "Can everybody still walk?"

"I think so," Matthew said. "But we have no right to."

"Complain later," Abe replied as he opened the shuttle's door. "Get your things and disembark. We have a long way to go and not a lot of time to get there."

"Where are we?" Norm asked. "We couldn't really make out landmarks."

"We're outside Tracy, California," Abe said. "Outside, but too close. We have maybe five minutes before all kinds of authorities are on top of us, so move."

* * *

Tseyo remembered the first time he lost control of his _ikran_. He was trying to keep up with a _talioang_, but nearly collided with one of his comrades. In the course of evading the collision, he instead nearly ran into a tree. His _ikran_, deciding in its own panic that he had no idea what he was doing, tried its own maneuver. Ultimately, both Tseyo and _ikran_ ended up on the jungle's floor, worse for the exercise.

What had just happened to him felt a lot like that moment.

As he recovered his bearings, T'ngyute came back and began issuing orders. Tseyo did not wait for Norm to translate the orders for him – he grabbed his sack of belongings and made a quick exit.

The first thing Tseyo noticed when he stepped outside was that the temperature was much colder than he was used to. He had expected, and experienced, the coldness of the Sky People's machinery, but after all Norm and Jakesully had told him, he had expected their home to be warmer than his own.

Before he could think that he had been deceived, he quickly took note of how dark it was outside. This was a night that Tseyo would not have believed existed. The sky was starless, and the single moon that hovered low over the horizon paled in brilliance to the moons in his familiar skies. The ground did not glow beneath his feet, and instead he only felt sharp, dying blades of grass digging into him. Indeed, the bioluminescent markers on his skin seemed to do as much to illuminate the ground as the lone moon.

Tseyo attributed the cold to this unnaturally dark night.

The Sky People disembarked the ship while Tseyo absorbed the realities of the world he had set foot on, and he was taken out of his trance when Norm hit his forearm and said, "We have to run."

Tseyo nodded and followed after the Sky People up a hillside. A short time later, the sky glowed as if there were a fire, and then Tseyo heard the unmistakable sound of an explosion. He stopped in his tracks, and he turned about, looking for signs of an attacking force. When he looked behind him, from where the sound had come, he saw the machine in which he arrived at this place in flames.

Again, Norm got his attention by hitting his arm. "We had to destroy it to cover our trail," he said. "Come on, we have to keep moving quickly."

"Where are we going?" Tseyo asked. "I don't see anything nearby. I can barely see anything at all."

"I don't know specifically," Norm replied. "But Abe – T'ngyute – says it will take most of the night."

"How long do your nights last?"

"This time of year, there is more night than there is day."

"Is that why it's so cold?"

Norm looked at him as though he were _skxawng_. "You're cold?" Tseyo nodded, and Norm laughed and said. "This is warm for us, or at least for this time of year."

"You and Jakesully made me believe that it would be hotter than at home," Tseyo replied. "But if this is what you consider warm, then I think I understand why you Sky People covet fire."

Norm chuckled and replied, "Well, our world can be warmer than yours, but let's hope you aren't still here when it gets to be _that_ time of year."

More time passed when, at the summit of a hill, T'ngyute told the team to rest while he checked on their path. It was then that Tseyo noticed another oddity. He looked at Norm and asked, "Why have you not taken off your mask? This is your home."

"The air is too poisonous," Norm replied. "It's safer for us to keep them on."

Tseyo could only shake his head. He could not imagine how air could become poisonous; however, he did know that the Sky People were able to do all kinds of terrible things, and so he took Norm at his word.

He scanned the horizon and noticed a number of areas where the sky appeared to glow red, in some places more brilliantly than others. He nodded towards Norm and asked, "What are those fires from?"

"Those aren't fires," Norm said. "Those are lights from the _cities_ I taught you about."

Tseyo narrowed his eyes at the horizon, looking for any of the structures which Norm taught him made up the Sky People's habitats, but he could not see them. He furrowed his brow and asked, "How are we able to see the lights but not the buildings?"

"Because there are so many lights in so many buildings, each _city _is powerful enough to light up the sky."

Tseyo had a number of questions he wanted to ask, but before he could, T'ngyute took Norm aside and spoke with him. Norm nodded at the end of their conversation, and then returned to Tseyo.

"We're going to be getting close to Sky People's homes," he said. "And, as I'm sure you've noticed, your skin is not blending into our environment."

Tseyo nodded. "This is not good for stealth."

Norm shook his head, "No, it's not. T'ngyute says that there's a river nearby, and we're heading there. When we get there, we're going to have to cover you in mud to keep you concealed."

Tseyo agreed; but when the group resumed its trek and arrived at the so-called river, he immediately had regrets. The river was less than a stream, and when he knelt at its bank, the water smelled putrid – even through his mask. He shook his head and said, "I won't cover myself in this filth."

"Tseyo, we can't risk having you spotted," Norm replied. "This is the only thing we have available to us."

"Then let's find another river," he said. "This one is more like the runoff from the waste trenches outside _Kelutral_ after a rainfall."

Norm frowned and said, "Actually, Tseyo, it's probably the same thing; but you could search for eight days and not find anything better out here."

If he could take off his mask, Tseyo would spit. Instead, he curled his lips and said, "Your air is cold and poisonous, your ground is dead, and your 'water' is little better than waste runoff. Why are you trying to save this world? I'm no longer surprised that _atokirina'_s light went out – this place is forsaken. There is no hope here."

Norm sighed and lowered his head. "This is our home, Tseyo. What other reason do we need to fight for it?"

Tseyo took a deep breath while he thought about that. He shook his head and replied, "If all the leaves fell from _Kelutral_, we would take it as a sign from Eywa to move. But, I respect your choice to fight." He sighed, knelt down, scooped up a handful of the acrid mud, and then applied it to his arm. "I hope we get to our destination quickly."

* * *

"Good morning, San Francisco!" the announcer said. "It's Friday, February Seventh, and we've got all the news you need for the end of your work week."

"It's also five-o-clock," Natalie muttered into her pillow as she reached over to her nightstand and silenced her tablet-turned-alarm clock. "It's not morning if the Sun isn't even up."

Unfortunately for her, there was a backup to the alarm that she could not so easily turn off – her German Shepherd, Vercingetorix. Despite her best efforts to block out any and all noises and attempt to go back to sleep, she could hear him stirring from his bed. Soon thereafter he had his forepaws on the edge of her bed and began licking what little of her face was not buried in the pillow.

She groaned and pushed him away. "All right, Vertex, I'm up." When she did not move, he let out a short bark. Natalie sat up and said, "Okay! Now I'm up. But be quiet, or else you'll wake Mom."

Vercingetorix just wagged his tail.

Natalie smiled and patted his head. Getting up early in the morning had been a routine for her since she was a young girl. First it was for batteries of medical tests and procedures; and then when she was healthier in her teen years, it was for swimming practice. However, with her competitive swimming days over, she maintained the practice out of habit.

She yawned and said, "Go get my cane, Vertex." He obliged her.

The cancer relapse she had two years earlier ended up costing her full use of her right leg. Natalie had been offered a wheelchair, but she insisted on walking for as long as she could, even if she did not know how much longer that would be.

The doctors, her friends, and family had assumed that she was in a full coma when the relapse hit, but instead she was simply locked in a non-functional body. For six weeks, she was fully aware and able to hear everything that went on around her: her mother's quiet prayers for her recovery, the doctor's grim prognosis, and the male nurse's frequent comments, when he was alone with her, about her "fantastic" breasts. Natalie was also more than aware of the several conversations her mother and father-figure Tom Walsh had about her father's job on Pandora.

Natalie wanted to make it a point when she regained the ability to speak to pin them down on details, but they had expressed such an outpouring of emotion when she did finally break free of the locked-in syndrome that she did not have the heart to tear them down. She thought she could defer it for a few weeks – just until therapy was over – but weeks became months, and months had turned into two years.

Vertex returned from the corner of the room with her cane, and dutifully released it once she had it in her hand. Once Natalie stood up, she looked down at Vercingetorix and asked, "Would you believe I was once a competitor for the Olympics?" He wagged his tail, and she smiled. "Well, that's because you're nice."

She sighed and went about her normal routine. Natalie let Vercingetorix out – the only time he would go out today as, when she checked the weather, they were calling for another code black air quality day – showered, dressed, and let Vercingetorix back inside.

When she began to prepare a breakfast of imitation bacon and eggs, Natalie looked down to her side, expecting to have to scold Vercingetorix for begging. To her surprise, however, he was not there. She looked around the kitchen, but ultimately found him in the living room, where he was staring intently out the floor-to-ceiling windows into the backyard.

"Vertex?"

He looked at her briefly, and then resumed looking out the window. A moment later he began barking.

"Vertex! No!" She took the frying pan off heat, and then made her way into the living room to grab his collar. "No barking in the house. You know better."

Normally, he would allow her to guide him away from the windows. This time, however, he whined and resisted, continuing to bark.

"You're going to wake up Mom!" she said. "And the neighbors."

"I don't know about the neighbors," Natalie heard her mom say, "but yes, now I'm awake."

The living room was open to the ceiling, and Natalie's mom was leaning against the railing of the second floor hallway that looked over the living room. She looked up at her mom and said, "I'm sorry, I don't know what's got him spooked."

"Have you taken him out?"

"Of course."

Her mom yawned and shrugged. "Well, maybe put him out again."

"No, the air's going to be bad again today," she said. "I'll put him in the basement."

Her mom nodded, and then went back to her bedroom. Natalie did as promised, very much over Vercingetorix's objections, and then she returned to the kitchen. She was about to put the frying pan back on the heated stovetop, when she noticed something in one of the windows.

A tablet had been set on the windowsill, leaning against the window itself, and a word processing program was on the screen. It had a simple message: "Hey, Stranger. Open the garage."

Natalie's eyes nearly bugged out of her head, and she shouted, "Mom! Mom, call the police!"

Her mom came running out of her room and leaned over the railing. "What's wrong, Natalie?" Natalie repeated the note's message, but her mom's reaction was far from what she expected. She took a deep breath and stepped away from the railing, as though in shock. "Open the garage door, Natalie," her mom said. "Now."

She raised an eyebrow. "Mom?"

"Now!" she repeated as she ran back to her bedroom.

Natalie did as ordered. She walked through one of the guest rooms, the laundry room, and then entered the garage. She hesitated before she walked towards the door leading to the backyard, and again when she put her hand on the doorknob. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

As soon as she saw the face of the man standing there, Natalie did not need to wait for an introduction or explanation. He looked exactly like the picture she had taken of him over a decade ago, and which she returned to often. She threw her arms around him and said, "Daddy!"

He smiled, held her close to him and said, "Hey, Sweetie. I'm home."

She did not see any point in trying to hold back her tears. "I've missed you so much, Daddy. _We've_ missed you."

"I've missed you, too," he said, kissing her cheek. "You grew up on me."

A moment later, her mom, wearing a coat, entered the garage. She screamed and almost knocked Natalie off of her father when she ran to hug him. "Hey, Stranger," she said. "Where have you been?"

He responded only by giving her a full kiss on her lips which, even for the circumstances, caused Natalie's stomach lurch at watching her parents engage in an impromptu make-out session – especially as her father still had an arm around her.

Looking for a way out, Natalie said, "I hate to break up the moment, Daddy, but you stink."

He broke from the kiss and looked at her with a shocked expression. "What?"

Her mom chuckled and said, "It's true, Abe. You smell like you haven't showered in – like you haven't ever showered."

His expression faded, and he laughed. "Yeah, I'll take care of that in a minute." He took a deep breath and continued, "In the meantime, I need you two to do something for me."

"Anything," Natalie said.

"I need you to close every blind and curtain in the house," he replied. "We have guests."

Natalie exchanged a glance with her mother, and it was her mom who asked, "Since when do we do that for guests? And who are these guests?"

"They're colleagues," he replied. "You'll see why in a second."

He leaned out the door and motioned for someone to come forward. Six more people entered the garage, the last of which, a man, leaned out the door and said in words that Natalie faintly recognized, "_Za'ivu_."

"You might want to stand back," her father said as he and the other man stepped farther into the garage.

Her mother looked at him warily and asked, "Abe?"

A moment later, a four-digit hand grabbed the doorframe, and then a mud-covered Na'vi male forced his way past the doorway into the garage – and then promptly hit his head against the ceiling.

Natalie went slackjawed at the sight, but her mother was even more to the point: she fainted.

* * *

A/N – To preempt an expected question, the next chapter will reveal what happened to Neytiri.


	9. Companions

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

Neytiri had survived the birthing trauma; however, it left her body too weak to fight of a subsequent infection.

During the first few days after the onset of her infection, Jake held out hope that she would recover. But as the seriousness of her condition became apparent, he became more desperate to find a cure for her. The remaining scientists at Hell's Gate offered a number of medicines, but they admitted that they did not understand well enough Na'vi immunology, much less about the type of infection plaguing her, to guarantee success. Ultimately, however, it was Neytiri who refused treatment.

It was storming the last night she was alive. Jake did what he could to make her comfortable, and stayed by her side.

Because there were no auspicious signs at their son's birth – at least none that seemed strong enough to overcome Neytiri's suffering – and so they agreed on a name outside of the event: Eytukan. Neytiri did what she could to care for their son in the few days she had with him, but Jake held him on that last night.

Eytukan was quiet for most of the evening, but a crack of thunder caused him to become restless. Neytiri took him from Jake's arms and quietly sang to him, all the while rubbing his chest. When he had calmed down, Neytiri smiled at him and performed a kind of dance with her fingers. The display mesmerized him, and when another burst of thunder echoed through Hometree, Eytukan barely seemed to notice.

Jake let out a short laugh and asked, "How am I supposed to do that?"

"You're his father," Neytiri replied. "He will draw strength from you."

"Thank you, but I meant—," Jake held up his hand and wiggled his human-like fingers.

She smiled, took his hand, and then kissed each of his fingers. "He won't care about your body, Jake. He will only care that you raise him as one of the people, to be a strong hunter like his father, and his namesake."

"And his mother." She leaned over and kissed his cheek, and he turned his head to kiss her. Jake rested his forehead against hers and whispered, "I don't know if I can do this without you."

"You will," she replied. "Do you remember what I said our first night together?"

"That you were with me, that we would be together for the rest of our lives."

Neytiri brushed her hand over his cheek. "Our energies, our spirits, are with each other."

"Your energy doesn't have your smile," he said, putting his hand over hers. "It doesn't have your laugh. It doesn't have your patience for a _skxawng_."

She smiled and said, "One day, after your pain is gone, you will see my smile again. You will know I have returned to Eywa, and I will have become a part of all life around you."

Jake tried not to think about how long that would take. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to commit to memory these last sensations of her touch. Neytiri, however, had another idea.

She reached behind him and took hold of his queue. "Let me become a part of you again, Jake."

He opened his eyes and took her queue in his hand, and they formed _tsaheylu_ for the last time. Through their bond, Neytiri shared with him a string of memories she had of him. He felt her awe when the cloud of woodsprites landed on him on the night they met, her exhilaration when they first rode banshees together, and an unrestrained love for him as they lay together at that moment.

Jake shared with her the admiration he had for the strength she showed as a hunter, and the compassion she had through her deep connection with the world. He recalled a memory of her unrestrained joy as she ran through ferns, prompting dozens of fan lizards to take flight, and the pleasure she took in serving as the people's spiritual guide.

To his dismay, Neytiri did not have the strength to maintain their bond as long as they had many times before. She looked much weaker for having made the effort, but she was smiling. She touched his cheek again and whispered, "_Ma_ Jake, I love you."

"I love you too, Neytiri."

Jake cradled Eytukan for the rest of the night while he kept vigil over Neytiri. Her breathing became shallow after she fell asleep, and she did not respond to his touch or his voice the next morning. At some point before midday, she stopped breathing, and the beautiful, intricate pattern of lights on her skin went dim.

Jake could not remember the next few days. He only vaguely recalled her funeral, and the outpouring of grief and sympathy from the people. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Until then, Jake had believed that the Na'vi's strict code of monogamy had to do with the intense pleasure they derived in bonding with their mates. Now, however, he understood it had as much to do with the immeasurable sense of loss that occurred when one's mate passed away.

In those first weeks after Neytiri died, Jake found himself frequently returning to her resting place, whether to seek council or to clean it after a rainstorm. He was aware that this was a distinctly human way to grieve, but he did not give much thought to how the people were perceiving it.

One day, however, Nakllte took him aside. "_Olo'eyktan_, perhaps you should consider delegating some more of your responsibilities while you find your balance," he encouraged, although without any enthusiasm. "The people understand what you're going through. There's no shame in grieving."

It was a wake-up call for Jake, but he refused Nakllte's advice. He did so not because he did not think he could take a break, but because he did not think he could teach his son about responsibility of he gave up his own in the face of a challenge.

As time passed, he did his best to be a father to Eytukan; and Mo'at was more than willing to serve as his mentor. Jake knew she was dealing with her own grief, having outlived her mate and both daughters, and spending time with Eytukan appeared to keep her spirits up. Too often, however, Jake felt himself unable to rise to live up to the ever increasing standards he set for himself – to be not only a good father, but continue to be a good leader.

In time, he was provided with an opportunity that he found harder to turn down. Khutxo and his pregnant mate, Fyatia, both of whom were once his rivals for power, approached him. "Fyatia and I were hoping we could care for young Eytukan from time to time," Khutxo said. "It would give us a good chance to prepare to care for our own child, and we think it would help you in your time of need."

Jake was reluctant at first, but eventually they came up with a routine which Jake felt was in Eytukan's best interests. Months later, when Fyatia gave birth to a son, they did not look for any signs. "We named him Jake," Fyatia said proudly when she presented their son to him. "It's a good name."

Night was always the loneliest time for Jake. Despite being in the constant presence of the people, and having Eytukan sleeping on his chest, the hammock felt too large without Neytiri there beside him. What made it worse was that he would only ever dream of Neytiri.

Eytukan, however, never appeared fazed or wanting for attention. If ever he did seem lonely, he would reach for Seze, the Na'vi doll Abe had carried to Pandora and given to Neytiri. It had belonged to his daughter who, according to Abe, had insisted that he take it to Pandora, and he used it to play on Neytiri's emotions.

It had not totally worked. Neytiri accepted the gift, but she did not keep it in any place of prominence on her rack of belongings. Every once in a while, and especially as relations with Abe soured, they talked about throwing the doll away – no other person would take it as a gift – but they could never agree to it.

Shortly after Neytiri died, Mo'at encouraged Jake to gift away her belongings as a way to help him move on. Eytukan had watched him sort out her trinkets dispassionately, until the point that he took Seze from the rack. Eytukan cooed and reached for the doll. In the back of his mind, Jake cringed at the idea of his son developing an affinity for dolls, but then he gave the doll a second look.

He had assumed Neytiri had kept the doll in a lower position among her belongings because she did not care much for it. Instead, he noticed that she had made a number of modifications to it, and now figured that she was trying to hide it in plain sight. At that moment, he recalled one of several memories Neytiri had shared with him during their bonds, and realized that she was trying to fashion the doll in her sister's image.

After that realization, he had no reservations about handing it down to Eytukan.

One year after Neytiri's passing away, Jake felt that he needed to do something for himself – even if it had ancillary benefits for Eytukan. Carrying Eytukan in his harness, Jake ascended to the top of Hometree and called his banshee, Rawke. He mounted the beast, took a moment to ensure that his son's harness was firmly fastened to him, and and then they took flight around Hometree.

Once the anxiety of carrying his son into the air passed, Jake simply enjoyed the sensation of being airborne. He stayed mindful of his son's presence, and so he did not ask Rawke to do anything particularly acrobatic, but he was not afraid of aggressive dives and climbs. He took time to appreciate the landscape and the delicate dance of the other moons across the face of Polyphemus.

The sun was setting when Jake finally took Rawke back to Hometree. After he dismounted, he only managed two steps before he felt Eytukan moving restlessly in his harness.

Jake's heart skipped a beat, worried that he had been too aggressive or out for too long. But when he took Eytukan from his harness, to Jake's surprise, he saw that his son was not crying, but laughing.

Immediately, Jake's worry melted away, and he laughed along with his son. "You liked that, didn't you?" he asked as he tickled Eytukan's belly. That's when he saw it: Eytukan had Neytiri's smile. And then in the same instant, he felt the sorrow which had consumed him dissipate, replaced by a presence he had not felt in months.

Neytiri was with him.

Jake was not lost in the moment, however, as Eytukan continued to laugh and reach out to Jake, in his own way wanting to share in Jake's joy of flight. He brought his son close and kissed his forehead. "One day, you're going to have your own _ikran_," Jake said with a smile. "And then your dad's going to show you some real stunts." Eytukan laughed in approval.

After that moment, Jake became more confident in his childrearing abilities – if nothing else, he was driven by the desire to see his son grow up to become a master banshee rider. He used twigs, sticks, and ribbons to build Eytukan a toy banshee, as all Na'vi children had; and whenever Eytukan became fussy, Jake would use the Seze doll and banshee toy together to reenact their increasingly frequent flights; and it always worked to calm him down.

When Eytukan was old enough to begin walking, Jake found that he took after _both_ his parents' headstrongness. Still too young to talk, he would show his determination by running everywhere. He became so well known for running everywhere that Jake was often encouraged by people to change his son's name. Kxllyo, Tulwé, and Nì'atul were popular suggestions, but he respectfully declined their suggestions.

A couple of years later, around the time Eytukan was beginning to play with bolas, Mo'at passed away from nothing more sinister than her age – a rarity among the Na'vi. As with Neytiri, Jake was by her side to hold vigil in her final moments; and, like Neytiri, Mo'at faced her death without trepidation. Her deep connection with Eywa had given her little to fear.

In their last conversation, she took his hands in hers and said, "I am very glad to have known you, Jakesully. You gave my daughter happiness, and have shown yourself to be a true leader of the people." She smiled and added, "Neytiri would be proud of how you are raising your child."

"I have you to thank for a lot of that," he replied.

She shook her head. "You were always capable of being a father and a leader," she said. "But I thank you for letting me be a part of young Eytukan's life."

Although he had stopped making regular visits to Neytiri's resting place, he had carefully plotted the burials of other Na'vi in order to leave a space next to hers. It was there that he laid Mo'at to rest. He knew both the mother and daughter would have lectured him that it did not matter where their bodies rested, be he felt it was an important gesture all the same.

Months later, Jake was teaching Eytukan and other children how to use a bow. At dinner that night, he noticed Eytukan seemed distracted. "Are you okay?"

His son nodded and said, "I'm just thinking about your hands, father."

Jake raised his brow. He had no doubts about where his son was going with the conversation, but he asked anyway. "What's so interesting about my hands?"

"When you were showing us the bow today, I saw that you have different hands." Eytukan crawled over to Jake's side of the hammock and sat beside him. He took Jake's hand turned it so his palm faced up, then set his own hand on top of it. "See? You have one more finger."

Jake smiled and said, "Yes I do."

"Why?"

"It's a very long story," Jake replied. "But, for now, let's just say it's how I was made."

"Why wasn't I made with it?"

Jake hesitated to answer. Instead, he tried to turn it into a teaching moment. "Let me ask you, do you think it makes me a different hunter?"

Eytukan shook his head.

"Do you think it makes me a different person?"

Again, Eytukan shook his head.

"Think of my extra fingers like the stripes and lights on our skin. It's just something that makes me unique. You should look at people for their spirit, not their bodies."

"I know, father," Eytukan said. "I see you as a person, but I just noticed your fingers. That's all."

Jake patted his son's hand and smiled. "Well, don't think too hard about them. Now, finish your _talioang_. He gave his energy to you, so you should respect him."

Eytukan nodded, crawled back to his side of the hammock, and then resumed his meal. Jake knew that, at some point, he was going to have to explain to his son his connection to the Sky People. Right now, however, he did not need to know that his father came from a far away world, and the long journey which occurred that led up to this moment in time. He only needed to know that his father was there for him when he needed him to be.

Right now, Jake was okay with that.

* * *

"Abe, what is _wrong_ with you?!" Krysta demanded. "I mean, I don't have words for how stupid this is."

"It's not as bad as you think," he offered.

After Krysta regained consciousness – she was only out for a couple of minutes – she demanded that his team stay in the garage while they had an emergency "family meeting." The meeting's location was the master bedroom on the second floor, the farthest possible point away from the garage in the house.

"Don't tell me what I think," she said. "You don't have a clue what I'm thinking right now."

"You could tell me—," he said with a grin.

"You brought a fucking alien home!"

"Mom!" Natalie exclaimed, clearly surprised by Krysta's vulgarity.

Abe, on the other hand, was less surprised. He chuckled and said, "No, that's pretty much what I thought you were thinking."

"Abe, this isn't funny," Krysta said. "We have an _alien_ in our house, and I'm going to guess that he doesn't have any paperwork to be here."

He nodded. "You're right about that."

"How did you even get him here?"

"We stayed off the roads, and he helped us jump the community's fence," Abe said with a shrug.

"Is he nice?" Natalie asked.

"That's not important right now, Natalie," Krysta responded. "What was going through your head in bringing him here?"

"Where else were we going to go?"

She just looked at him like he was speaking gibberish. Eventually she shook her head and asked, "Why is he here at all?"

For the better part of the next hour – longer than he expected, due to Krysta's interruptions – he detailed his plan to his family.

When he finished, Krysta again looked at him as though nothing he said had registered with her. "I think you have radiation poisoning," she said flatly. "Abe, seriously, I think you need to see a doctor."

"I don't have radiation sickness," Abe replied.

"Then why are you doing this?" she asked – almost begged him to explain. "This doesn't make any sense."

Abe was about to explain himself, but then Natalie asked, "Is it because they tried to make you hurt the Na'vi?"

He raised an eyebrow and asked, "What makes you think that?"

She took a deep breath, looked at Krysta, and said, "Mom, I was awake the last time I was in the hospital. I heard you and Tom talking about Daddy's job, and why he was fired."

Krysta looked like she was about to faint again. Abe was not sure what event Natalie was referring to, although he was sure he would learn soon enough. But in the absence of a response from Krysta, Abe looked at Natalie and said, "I was fired because someone on my team thought he had an opportunity to help himself, and he took it."

"So, you _were_ hurting the Na'vi?"

"No," he said defensively. "I was not hurting the Na'vi."

"Then why is the company mad at you?"

"It's complicated, Sweetie," he replied. "I promise when this is all over, I'll explain all of it to you – to both of you. Right now, though, I need you to trust me."

Krysta took a deep breath and said, "Natalie, I want to talk to your father in private."

She nodded and headed for the door, when Abe said quickly, "Do not go talk to the others."

Natalie sighed and said, "Okay, Daddy," and then closed the door.

Krysta waited a second to ensure Natalie had gone before she slapped him. "Do you have any idea what we've been through because of this? Do you have any idea how much you're asking of us now?"

Abe rubbed his cheek and replied, "Slapping me won't help me appreciate it, Krysta."

"That fat, son of a bitch, Savage, came after us with _everything_ after Parker ratted you out," she said angrily. "He sued us to try and recover your salary. He bought up the lab where Natalie's clinical trial was taking place and fired the researchers. I started my own security consulting business to try and generate some income, and he sued me for violating their intellectual property!

"And then at the end of all of that, after I sank into debt fighting off his lawyers, Natalie relapsed. Thank God we had Tom looking out for us, because otherwise I would have had to sell the house to pay her medical bills.

"Now, here you come, talking about how you have a brilliant plan to take down RDA. In all the time it took you to come up with this plan, did you stop to think about what might happen to _us_ if you fail – in the very, very likely event that you'll fail?"

Abe took a deep breath and said, "Honey, I can't imagine what you've been through, but…"

"Answer me!" she shouted. "What's going to happen to us if your brilliant scheme falls apart?"

He was taken aback by her anger and pessimism. He remembered her as being a risk taker, bold and unwilling to let anybody get the better of her. But whatever happened to her in the years that it took him to get back home had dramatically shifted her outlook.

Abe could only muster a simple, but essentially pure response. "Nothing good."

"'Nothing good?'" She was incredulous. "Abe, you'll be branded a terrorist! Do you know what they're doing to terrorists these days?"

"It can't be much worse than what they were doing to them when I left," he replied.

Krysta ignored his comment and continued, "Even if you're successful, it's not like people are just going to ignore your role in RDA's hierarchy – or mine, as long ago as it was. I mean, if you take down RDA, they're going to want to take down everybody who's ever been an executive there." She shook her head and said, "What about Tom? Does he deserve to suffer, after all he did for us while you were gone?"

"I know this is not a perfect plan," Abe said. "But if the chairman isn't stopped, if he isn't held accountable, we're all going to be worse off."

She stepped to within inches of him and said, "Look me in the eyes and tell me you believe that, Abe."

He put his hands on her cheeks, looked her in the eyes, and said, "Krysta, _I know it_. This isn't about me or RDA, this is about protecting Natalie's future."

"Then you promise me that she's not going to suffer if you make a mistake," she replied, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Promise me that after all of this is over, she's going to have a future to look forward to."

"I promise," he said. "I promise she'll be all right."

* * *

After what seemed like an unreasonably long wait, Abe returned to the garage. Norm noticed that his right cheek was much redder than his left.

"Okay, team, welcome to my home," he said. "If you'll all make your way to the living room, my wife, Krysta, will get you set up in your rooms." He nodded at Norm and said, "If you'll have Tseyo follow me, we'll get him squared away."

From what Norm had seen of the house's exterior, he knew to expect something palatial compared to the living conditions most people had. Even so, as he followed Abe into the main part of the house, he managed to be surprised.

The house, perhaps to Tseyo's relief, was built with tall ceilings. Although Norm noticed Tseyo had to duck to avoid some of the ceiling fixtures, he otherwise had about a foot of space to the ceiling. The dining room and kitchen together could take up as much space as an inner city, one bedroom apartment. The living room, where Krysta received the rest of the group, had large floor-to-ceiling windows – and, as the room was left open to the second floor, the windows were almost twenty feet tall.

Norm assumed it had a great view of the hills which surrounded Livermore, but per Abe's instructions, the drapes had been pulled closed.

Krysta looked at Abe and asked, "How do you want to pair them up?"

"Dawn and Amy upstairs, Doctors Patel and Cook in the front guest room, Norm and Luke in the porch guest room," he replied without hesitation, avoiding any formal introductions by simply pointing at people as he called out their names.

Norm, however, had his own ideas, and asked, "Why can't I room with Amy?"

Abe looked at Amy and asked, "Colonel, would you be okay with that?" She nodded. "Dawn, Luke, are you two okay rooming together? I'd like to avoid having to put anybody on the couch."

The two exchanged a glance, shrugged, and Luke said, "I'm okay with it."

"Same here," Dawn added.

"Okay. Dawn and Luke upstairs, Norm and Amy in the porch room." Krysta nodded, but then gave Tseyo a wary glance before she directed people to their rooms.

Norm continued to follow Abe into a hallway, where he opened a door to the basement. Though the stairwell down was cramped, the basement, like the ground floor, had enough headroom to accommodate Tseyo. It was windowless, carpeted, and equipped like a high-end entertainment room.

"Jeez, Abe, it must have been difficult for you to leave all this behind," Norm said, although he was not terribly sympathetic.

Abe just shook his head – less in response to his assertion, he figured, and more in reaction to his tone – and walked towards a door. "Back here is my study and a private, full bath…"

He was interrupted by a shriek when he opened the door, which was followed quickly by, "Daddy!"

Abe slammed the door, clearly surprised. "Sweetie, what are you doing down here?" he asked through the door.

"This is my room, Daddy."

As quickly as he was startled, now Abe looked confused. "What happened to my study?"

"It's my old room, now."

"Why'd you move?"

"I needed more room for my rehabilitation equipment."

"Shit," Abe muttered. He looked at Norm and said, "I'm going to have to think of something else for him."

"Did you bring the Na'vi down here?" Natalie asked. "I don't mind if he stays here."

"I do!" Abe replied quickly. "He's going to stay in the living room."

Norm snorted and said, "You're going to make Tseyo come all this way just to crash on your couch, or the floor? Good luck getting him to go along with it."

Natalie emerged from her room and said, "Daddy, if you're trying to protect me from the big, bad alien, I think you're too late. He's already in the house." She then looked at Tseyo, smiled and, much to Norm's surprise, said in very good Na'vi, "Welcome to our home."

Tseyo also looked surprised, but he nodded his head and replied, "Thank you."

Abe looked the most surprised, if not confused, of all of them and, bringing the conversation back to English, asked Natalie, "When did you learn Na'vi?"

She raised an eyebrow and said, "I told you I was studying Na'vi, like, five years ago. Remember when Tom opened the wormhole for us?"

"Oh," Abe replied meekly. He sighed and said, "I'm sorry, Natalie, but our conversation was so short…"

"I know," she interrupted, holding up a hand to stop him. "That was pretty rude of me to run out like that," she said. She sighed and looked down. "I didn't really appreciate what was going on at the time, and I've felt bad about it ever since."

Abe sighed and nodded. "Well, it's okay, Sweetie. I'm not upset." Natalie smiled.

Norm coughed into his hand and said, "Not to be rude myself, but Tseyo's still covered in some pretty pungent mud. Does he have a bathroom to use, or not?"

Abe took a deep breath and asked Natalie, "Can he use your shower?"

She nodded. "Just let me get Vertex upstairs."

"Who's Vertex?"

"My dog."

Abe looked at Norm and asked, "You've told Tseyo about dogs, right?"

He nodded but replied, "We might want to move him to a back wall, though. I'll guess that he's going to cause the dog to freak out."

Sure enough, as soon as Vertex emerged from Natalie's room, he went ballistic. There was a moment where Norm was sure that he would escape Natalie's hold and charge at Tseyo, but she managed to keep him at a distance. Once he was upstairs, Abe left Norm and Tseyo alone to get situated. However, he left them with two firm commands, "He doesn't come upstairs unless I say so, and he doesn't touch a thing in my daughter's room."

* * *

Norm had patiently walked him through the intricacies of human bathing, having apologized for not teaching him earlier. "I honestly didn't think we were going to end up in a house," he said.

Tseyo enthusiastically washed off the disgusting mud camouflage, although he had to sit on his knees in order to come close to getting his full body exposed to the flow of water – and even then it only hit his chest. He was pleased that the water did not have the same putrid smell as the so-called river which had been the source of his mud coating, but he could still tell that it was not as pure as the water back home.

However, to the Sky People's credit, it was at least as warm as the water he was used to bathing in.

Even though he was uncomfortable with Norm staying in the tiny room while he cleaned himself, he was at least grateful that Norm had the decency to keep his back turned to him.

However, the silence was even more unnerving than Norm's presence. He resolved himself to figure out why Sky People were so adverse to conversation, but in the meantime he did not want to wait for Norm to say something. "I thought you said Sky People live in enclosed places," Tseyo said in the course of his cleaning. "This place does not seem so enclosed."

"T'ngyute has more resources, and a higher status, than most other Sky People," Norm replied. "He and his family get to have more space."

"You sound unhappy about that."

"I am," Norm said after a short pause.

"Why?"

"I don't think he earned it fairly," he replied. "And I don't think it's fair that one person can have so much more than other people who are suffering."

"But your people let him have it anyway."

"People like T'ngyute make the rules that everyone else has to follow."

Tseyo furrowed his brow and asked, "T'ngyute is _olo'eyktan_?"

"No," Norm replied. "He – people like him – are just more powerful than the rest of us."

He frowned, but decided not to ask any more questions. Tseyo had to wipe the water droplets from his mask in order to see. He looked over himself and said, "I think I've got it all off."

Norm, still averting his eyes, reached in and turned the stones – knobs – to cut the water flow. He handed him a textile and said, "Wipe the water off with this before you step out."

"Why? It's water. It will dry on its own."

"Sky People get upset if you drip water around their homes."

Again, Tseyo frowned, but he did as instructed. When he gave Norm his assurances that he was dry again, Norm gave him his loincloth and other accessories back. They returned to the main room, where Norm helped him get his hammock set up. They crudely tied it to some fixtures on the walls, and had to keep it low to the floor to prevent him from hitting his head against the ceiling if he ever sat up too quickly, but it held up when Tseyo sat in it.

"What do we do now, teacher?"

"Get some rest," Norm said. "You've had a very long night, and I'm sure you're going to need your strength for whatever surprises T'ngyute has planned next."

Tseyo took a deep breath and nodded. "I wish there was not so much waiting involved," he said. "The more I sit still, the more anxious I become."

Norm raised his brow and asked, "Are you okay?"

He took a moment to think about it, to search his heart, and then shook his head. "This place is so strange to me," he replied. "I'm not scared, but I don't know if I should be."

Norm nodded and replied, "I can't say that I think it was a good idea for T'ngyute to bring you here, but I think I can say that you're safe here. Try not to think too hard about what's going to happen next."

Tseyo sighed. "I don't know that I can." He paused and added, "I still don't know that I trust T'ngyute."

"You've already come this far, Tseyo," he said. "It's too late to give in to your suspicions."

"Do you think it was a mistake for me to come here?"

"If I thought that, I wouldn't have let you come in the first place." Before Tseyo could respond, Norm said, "You're probably feeling more nervous than usual because you're tired. I'm sure you'll feel better with some sleep."

"I think you're right," he replied. He forced himself to smile and said, "Thank you, teacher."


	10. Revelations

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – I'm going on hiatus for a few weeks, but I'll be back mid-late May. I'll focus on responding to your reviews and comments in the meantime.

* * *

Things had changed so quickly, Natalie could not think of anything else to do other than carry on with her usual routine and hope that in time, and sooner rather than later, her part in recent events would become more apparent. Reclining on her living room couch, Natalie tried to pay attention to her professor's lecture, as it streamed live on her television, but nothing he said seemed to register. She was studying for a future career as a researcher on Pandora, but just one floor beneath her was someone who could teach her, from first-hand experience, everything she could want to know on the subject.

Vertex had taken up a sentry position by the basement door. Each time he thought he heard someone stirring downstairs, his ears perked up and he would look back at her, as if to ask to be let downstairs. Each time, she would try to get him to come over to her and ignore the basement, but he would not heed her commands.

She looked at the clock and realized that, forty-five minutes into the class, she had not taken a single note. Natalie sighed, took her tablet from the table in front of her, and used it to request to be allowed to log out of the class. Before she was dismissed, however, she was routed to one of the professor's assistants.

The assistant, a young post-graduate student, appeared as a picture-in-picture over the lecture on the television and asked, "Is everything okay, Natalie?"

"I'm just having trouble concentrating, Emily."

"Did you have a hospital visit recently?" the aide asked. "I know your regimen takes a lot out of you, but you should be requesting medical absences ahead of time for those."

"No, it's not medical today," she replied. "I'm just not focusing. I'll be able to download the lecture later, right?"

"Yes, but the conditions of your tele-education contract are that you have to be logged in to the lectures, unless you have a medical excuse."

Natalie frowned, but after taking a moment to think, she shrugged and asked, "I get two absences before it affects my grade, right?"

Emily nodded. "That's right."

"So this will be my first."

"All right," she said with a nod. "The lecture will be available for download tonight, and your syllabus will update with assignments for Monday." The picture-in-picture disappeared, and a moment later the lecture was replaced by Berkeley's student menu screen. Natalie navigated the various menus to notify her other professors for that day about her absence, and she queued their lectures to be downloaded later.

As soon as she was logged out of Berkeley's intranet, she turned off the television and leaned back into the couch.

The house was quiet. Normally, this would not bother Natalie, as she was used to being home alone while her mother met with clients – as she was off doing now. However, the house was full for the first time in years. It seemed to her that there should be more activity, even before considering the seriousness of the last few hours, but everybody had retired to rest for the day.

Natalie might have considered doing the same if not for two reasons. The first was that, unlike her father and his cohorts, she was not exhausted from a night-long trek through the Diablo Range. The second was that her room was in the basement, where the Na'vi visitor had been given quarter. Although she had said, honestly, that she would not mind if he stayed down there, she had not given much thought about how she might interact with him; and now seemed like an inconvenient time to disturb him.

While she thought about what to do with the rest of her day, Vertex stirred again. However, this time, she could also hear movement from the basement. Her heart skipped as she hoped to see the Na'vi coming upstairs – making moot her concerns about bothering him – but she was brought back down to Earth when only his handler emerged.

Vertex tried to push past Norm to get into the basement, but he was quick to block him with his leg. "Stay," he commanded, but Vertex paid him no mind. He continued to try and push past him and into the stairwell.

Natalie clapped her hands, "Come here, boy." Vertex stopped, turned his head towards her, and whimpered. She repeated the command, and this time he obeyed, albeit reluctantly. She reached out and scratched him behind his ears once he was at her side, prompting him to lie down.

"Thanks," Norm said as he closed the door behind him. He then walked towards the kitchen.

"You're rooming with the colonel, right?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Right."

"Then your room is the other way – door's on the right."

He nodded and said, "But I can see that the refrigerator is this way and to the left." He grinned and added, "I'll turn back, though, if there's no beer in there."

Now both of Natalie's eyebrows were raised. "It's only a quarter after ten," she said. "Isn't that a bit early?"

"I've been awake for seventeen hours, and I haven't had a beer in nine years," he replied. "I promised myself to have one at the first possible chance once I got back, so I'll worry about the time later."

Natalie's skepticism faded, and she nodded slowly. "I have a couple of Valencia Stouts in there."

His lip curled, but then he shrugged and walked on. "A stout might be a bit much before going to bed, but I'll take it." Once at the refrigerator, he asked, "You said these are yours?"

"Yes, why?"

"How old are you?"

"Twenty."

He closed the door, a beer in hand. "The way your dad talked about you," he said as he twisted off the cap, "I kind of thought you were younger." He did not wait a moment after speaking before taking a long swig from the bottle.

"Is it what you wanted?" she asked.

He shook his head and took the bottle from his lips. "No. It's a bit too much like a coffee stout for me. However, it's cold and it's beer." He walked into the living room and sat in one of the chairs next to the couch. "So you were nine when your dad left?"

She nodded. "Why did you think I was younger? How did he talk about me?"

"You were his, 'little girl,' so I figured you for four or five."

"Did he talk about me much?"

"Only when he needed to make a point," Norm said as, this time, he only sipped the stout. "But he made points often, so I guess he did."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Your dad was trying to build up trust with us and the Na'vi, so he pretty much wore his fatherhood on his sleeve." He pointed the bottle at her and said, "I was there when he gave your doll to them."

"Yeah?" she asked excitedly. Natalie leaned forward and pressed, "How did they react?"

"Cautiously," he said. "The Na'vi's toys are designed to make children familiar with their responsibilities as a hunter from an early age. They have banshee and direhorse dolls, but not a lot of toys in their own images."

"Oh," she replied. "Well, for a nine-year-old, it was a good idea. But it – or something – worked, right? Or else why is—?"

"Tseyo."

"Or else why is Tseyo here?"

Norm finished off the bottle before responding. "Didn't your dad fill you in?"

"Broadly," she replied, "but he didn't say much about what actually happened on Pandora. Nobody has."

Natalie waited for Norm to offer to fill in the details, but he idly swirled the empty bottle until he took a deep breath and said, "Well, I'm sure you'll be filled in eventually."

She snorted and said, "Thanks." Norm just shrugged. "So, why doesn't Daddy want me around Tseyo? He can't be dangerous."

"What makes you think that?"

"Daddy brought him here," she replied. "I mean, if he's anything like my mom, then he probably thought all of this out way ahead of time. He clearly didn't have a problem with having Tseyo here, so he can't be dangerous. However, he got upset when it turned out that we'd pretty much be roommates. Why?"

Norm chuckled and said, "You are your father's daughter." He sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "To be honest, I don't think you should expect to spend much time around him. Tseyo's not a bad person, but he is a little weirded out by everything he's seen so far."

"So you're just going to leave him alone in the basement?"

"No, but he trusts me. He doesn't know you, so he may not open up to you." He shook his head and added, "The Na'vi, especially in Tseyo's clan, aren't predisposed to trust humans."

Natalie crossed her arms. "You aren't making sense. He's not dangerous, so I _could_ get to know him; but because he might not trust me, I _shouldn't_ get to know him – or let him learn to trust me, to trust humans. I mean, he's supposed to be the Na'vi's ambassador, right? Shouldn't he learn to trust people?"

"Tseyo's not here to be an ambassador," Norm replied. "He's here to be a witness."

She was getting angry at his evasiveness. "A witness for what? What are you and Daddy and everybody else so afraid to tell me? I'm not nine-years-old anymore."

Norm sighed and stood. "Your dad should be the one to tell you, not me."

"Well, Daddy didn't tell me," she said. "And if you're not going to tell me, then maybe I'll ask Tseyo."

"Believe me, that would end poorly."

She laughed out of exasperation. "So I'm just supposed to ignore the ten-foot alien in the room? That's what you're telling me?"

"I'm saying don't expect him to be your friend," Norm replied. "And right now, we need him to be focused on accomplishing our mission. After that, ask him or me or your dad whatever you want."

They stared at each other in tense silence, but eventually Natalie shook her head and sighed. "All right, fine, I'll forget about this. For now."

* * *

Abe rubbed his eyes in the hopes that it would help relive his headache, even though he knew it would be better for him to go back to sleep. He had managed a few hours of rest after the rest of his team was squared away in the house's guest rooms, but he still had plenty of work to do.

For hours he sat in his relocated study, scouring through an array of personal information databases, social networking sites, and news clippings to learn the whereabouts and activities of people he knew a decade ago. He had been surprised by the changes which had taken place in his own house, so he had no desire to be surprised once he got into the field.

What he found, however, was disheartening.

Many of his best employees in the Office of Asset Management and Information Security were no longer with RDA, and most of the ones who remained were in different offices – all of it likely due to a purge ordered by Savage. His list of street informants could be found in obituaries. One by one, Abe crossed off people whom he had thought would have been in positions to help him.

He leaned back in his chair and thought about the options which remained available to him, and he was not enthusiastic about any of them. What started into a deep thinking session, however, turned into an impromptu nap, and he was startled awake by a hand on his shoulder.

Abe turned around and saw Krysta standing behind him. He smiled and put a hand on hers. "How long was I out?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "But you were asleep when I first got home a couple of hours ago."

"And you're only just waking me?"

"Abe, you've had a long night. You're going to be worthless if you don't sleep at some point." Krysta grinned and said, "Besides, I had to leave again to get groceries." She pulled up a chair and sat in front of him. "Listen, Abe, I'm sorry about freaking out this morning."

"Don't be," he said with a shake of his head. "I know I laid some pretty heavy stuff on you."

"You brought an alien home," she replied with a laugh. "I can come to terms with everything else, but that's – Yeah, I'd call that 'heavy stuff.'" She looked at the many tablets he had running and asked, "Anything giving you second thoughts?"

"Second, third, and fourth," he replied with a sigh. "I think I've underestimated just how much things have changed."

"Well, it's too late to call the whole thing off."

He laughed and said, "Yeah, I'd say so." He took a deep breath and continued, "All hope isn't lost, yet. There are still a few critical people where I need them."

Krysta put a hand on his knee and said, "Walk through the aftermath with me, Abe. What do you expect things to be like if you're successful?"

"Immediately, I'd expect chaos," he replied. "What we're doing – what I'm doing – is going to make lots of people to burn. In the long-run, though, I think we'll be okay."

She snorted and said, "That's woefully lacking in detail."

He smiled and put a hand over hers. "Really? I thought that was a very detailed way of saying, 'I don't know.'"

"It isn't like you to not know."

"I've never been out front like this," he replied with a shrug. "It's new territory for me."

"I just hope you figure it out before Savage does," she replied. "I don't think I need to lecture you again about what the price of failure will be."

He shook his head. "No, I've got those details pretty well formed." Abe sighed and shook his head again, slowly this time. "He really tried to kill Natalie, didn't he?"

Krysta nodded. "He bought up the research lab the moment it became clear to him that he was going to lose in court. He put in a new administrator, fired the researchers, and locked up the research."

Abe rapped his knuckles against his desk and nodded. "Well, that's incentive enough not to fail," he said. "Where is she now?"

"Getting dinner started," she replied. "You still like shepherd's pie, right?"

"Absolutely," he said with a smile. "I would have killed for some up there. I want to go the rest of my life without ever seeing another M-R-E."

Krysta chuckled and said, "Well, she's learned to make a pretty good one. I mean, the meat probably isn't much better than in one of those rations, but…"

"It's food," he finished for her. "And it's at home. I'll take it."

Abe leaned forward to kiss her, and soon they had each other in their arms. He moved one of his hands below her waist and began to unfasten the buttons of her pants. She pushed away from him and said just above a whisper, "Abe, not now."

He kissed her neck and asked, "Why not?"

"Natalie can't cook for _everybody_ alone."

"So dinner waits twenty minutes."

She laughed. "Abe, I love you, but you haven't held up dinner for twenty minutes in twenty years."

"Well, I have been gone for eleven of those," he said with a grin. "You can't make that part of my performance evaluation, Boss."

"That's the other thing, Abe," she said with a sigh as she stood up. "You know, I mean, _I'm sixty-two_. And with everything that's gone on—," her voice cracked and she wiped her eyes. "Sorry."

He stood up and put his hands on her cheeks. "You think I care about how old you are? It's always been a fundamental part of spending the rest of our lives together."

"It's not just my age or my body, Abe," she replied. "You just seem like a different person. Since when did you become this great, moral crusader? You and I both knew what we were doing in AMIS."

"And I don't regret it," he replied. "I'm not trying to make up for any of that. But Savage sent me away from you and Natalie, and then came after you when he knew I couldn't hurt him. Well, now I can hurt him, and I'm going to do it." He grinned and said, "Remember what you asked me when I first told you I was being sent to Pandora?"

She chuckled and said, "Of course. I asked if you looked him in his fat face and told him to fuck off."

"I will," he said.

"You'd better." They kissed again and held each other close.

As she unbuttoned his shirt, he whispered in her ear, "Besides, you don't look a day over fifty-five."

She kicked his shin and replied, "You're not helping, Abe."

* * *

Night was falling when Jake and Eytukan began their walk back home. They had not gone far – Jake's responsibilities would not allow him to wander too far away, in case his leadership was needed on short notice – but deep enough in the forest for Jake to give his son a substantive lesson in tracking. They had picked up on a hexapede's path, and when they finally came upon it, Jake let Eytukan try to approach as close as he could.

Much to Jake's surprise, his son was able to get close enough to make a solid pitch with bolas, were he so armed, and take down the animal. However, his confidence got the better of him, and a careless placement of his foot gave the hexapede cause for alarm; and it sprinted off into the jungle without bothering to look for an actual sign of a predator.

Naturally, Eytukan was disappointed with himself for letting the animal get away, but Jake reassured him that the point of today was not about making a kill. His son seemed okay after that.

Not far from home, Eytukan picked up on another animal of prey, and without a word ran off towards it. "Eytukan!" Jake called after him, quickening his own pace. "Don't go too far." His son, declining to respond, slid along the moss-covered ground until he came to a halt in front of a grove of ferns, and that was when Jake saw his son's target.

Eytukan grabbed a nearby stick and poked at the fan lizard. In its defense, and in an instant, the lizard unfurled the bioluminescent disc on its back and launched into the air to get away from Eytukan's prodding. Jake's son laughed in amusement – although Jake was sure the lizard was far less amused – and he tried to catch the creature as it floated in search of safety.

Jake, however, stopped him by gently placing a hand on his shoulder. Eytukan looked up at him with a confused expression on his face. It was a common game among children – really, among all Na'vi – to pester fan lizards into flight and then catch them; so Jake could appreciate why his son might be confused by being stopped. Jake smiled at him, knelt down, picked up a stone, and then threw it into the dense growth of ferns.

A moment later, dozens of fan lizards were in the air, all startled by the rock's flight through their nest. The grove, which had before been glowing with a faint blue-green that was common among most plants in the jungle, was now illuminated under a rich purple light due to the number of lizards which had taken flight. Jake took his hand off Eytukan's shoulder, and the moment he did he ran, laughing, into the pack of lizards, grabbing at any that came close.

Jake let him have fun with the helpless creatures for a short while before saying, "All right, child, we have to get home."

"Can I bring one with me?"

Jake shook his head. "Their home is out here."

His son frowned, but he understood. He released the lizard he had already captured, and then rejoined Jake's side for the rest of the walk home. "Did you chase fan lizards when you were a child?"

"No," he replied. "I didn't have them near my home when I was a child."

Once again, his son looked confused. "Why not?" Jake was about to respond with his default answer, but Eytukan beat him to it. He sighed and asked, "Do I have to wait until I'm older before you tell me?"

Jake's heart sank at the disappointed tone his son had taken. It seemed to Jake to be everything opposite of Eytukan's usual optimism, and he found it unpleasant. Jake wondered if his son was still too young to hear the truth about his past; but he felt that if his son was able to ask the right questions, then he deserved to know.

Jake put a hand on his shoulder. "No." He stopped walking and sat on his knees in order to be at eye-level with his son. He took a deep breath and said, "Eytukan, no matter what I tell you right now, you know I'm your father, right? This isn't going to change that."

Eytukan nodded.

"Do you remember when you asked me about my hands?" Eytukan nodded again. "Do you remember what I told you?"

"You said it was how Eywa made you, so you'd be unique."

That was a close recollection. Jake had not invoked Eywa in his explanation, but he could not blame his son for automatically doing so. Like all Na'vi children, he had already been taught to revere the all-present consciousness, and its role in guiding life on the planet. Jake might have let the insertion pass if it were not so fundamental to what he was trying to tell his son.

Jake shook his head and corrected, "I did say it was how I was made, but not by Eywa."

"Then how?"

Jake had to smile. _That_ was going to be a conversation for another time; but for now, he was content to let Eytukan believe children were entirely the products of Eywa. "Eytukan, you've been told about the dreamwalkers, haven't you?" He nodded. "That's who I was. I was a Sky Person, and this body was made for me to live among the people as a dreamwalker."

His son looked at him in disbelief, but then he laughed. "Father, those are just stories. The Sky People have different bodies."

"They are stories," he said, "but not like make-believe stories. They're part of our history."

"But in the stories, the Sky People sent dreamwalkers to hurt us," Eytukan replied, the levity quickly draining from his voice. "You're _Toruk Makto_. You can't hurt us."

"Before I was _Toruk Makto_, I _was_ a dreamwalker." He sighed, "And, yes, I was sent by the Sky People to hurt the clan."

"Did you?"

Jake nodded.

Eytukan looked confused, and then with trepidation revealed to Jake that he had a better understanding of where children came from than he let himself believe. "If you're a dreamwalker, then am I a dreamwalker? Am I here to hurt the people?"

"No!" Jake said emphatically. He put his hands on his son's shoulders and said, "You _are_ one of the people. They are your family."

Eytukan was quiet for a little while longer, and then he asked, "Did my mother know you were a dreamwalker?"

"She did," Jake replied with a nod. "She was also the one who taught me to love the people."

"And she loved you?"

"We loved each other – very much."

He was quiet again, and then asked, "Will you ever become a dreamwalker again?"

Jake shook his head. "No. The Sky People made this body for me, but the people and Eywa made it so that I could never go back to being a dreamwalker."

Eytukan stepped forward and hugged him, and Jake was quick to return his son's embrace.

"Are you okay?" Jake asked as he idly rubbed Eytukan's back. "Do you have any more questions?"

"No," his son replied, his voice shaking. Jake thought he could feel a tear roll down his shoulder. He worried that he should have followed his plans to wait a while longer before telling his son about his past.

Jake held him more tightly. "I'm still your father," he said. "I still love you very much."

"They say only bad things about the dreamwalkers," Eytukan replied. "I don't want you to be a bad person."

"I'm not a dreamwalker anymore," Jake said. "And I promise to not be a bad person."

Eytukan took a step away from him, revealing that he had been crying. Jake offered him a smile and brushed away the remnants of his tears with his thumbs. "I see you, father," he said, "and you're not a bad person."

Jake's smile broadened and he nodded. "And I see you, Eytukan. You're a very brave person."

He smiled weakly and said, "I think we should go home, now."

Jake nodded again and stood up. "Do you know the way back from here?"

Eytukan nodded and pointed in the correct direction. "I can almost hear the rest of the people."

Jake grinned and asked, "Do you want to race home?"

His son smiled and did not hesitate to take off in a sprint. Jake's gait would have allowed him to easily outrun Eytukan, but he wove back and forth behind his son, only occasionally taking a few-pace lead in order to encourage him to run faster. Along that final stretch of the path home, they could not avoid to startle a number of fan lizards, each time eliciting a laugh from Eytukan.

One day in a future that seemed to come at him ever faster, Jake knew that he would need to make an effort to beat his son in a race. Then not long thereafter, he would lose. Jake knew it was inevitable, but he did not dwell on it; and as they broke out of the jungle and into the tall-grassed meadow that was the bed of their home, Jake hoped his son was not dwelling on it, either.

There were far too many more fan lizards to bother for him to worry about such things.


	11. The Lowest Place

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

On their long march up RDA's corporate ladder, the Schellers were required to host a number of dinner parties. Those early experiences taught them that seating arrangements could determine the outcome of the event more than the quality of the food.

There was the dinner where they had unknowingly seated the Assistant Director of Bioengineering next to her ex-boyfriend, the Chairman of the Independent Review Board for Genetic Projects. Like with Abe and Krysta, their office relationship had been a secret; but the public airing at the Schellers' dinner table of the grievances which led to their otherwise secret break-up remained a source of amusement for RDA's elite.

Their housewarming dinner had not gone much better when the then-chief of AMIS was seated across from the Director of Mineral Exploration and Harvesting. Unbeknownst to either Abe or Krysta, the AMIS chief had opened an investigation on the director. The chief, who in his final years had shed some of the discretion that had helped to propel him through his career, began to grill the director on his personal and his department's expenditures.

The Schellers hosted a second housewarming dinner some months later to make up for the resulting fiasco.

Even though the dinner tonight was far from a formal event, Abe and Krysta, in their habit, huddled over the kitchen's island. On the countertop they had laid out the names of all of the house's current occupants on makeshift place cards. In the adjacent living room, Abe's team was preoccupied with the television, scanning through the channel guide to learn the fates of their favorite programs and to deride the current state of programming.

"Obviously we know where we sit," Krysta said. "We should figure out who's the guest of honor."

"That should be easy," Natalie said as she took plates from the overhead cupboard. "It's Tseyo."

To clarify: Abe and Krysta had all of the human occupants' names on place cards.

The parents looked at their daughter as though she had insulted them. "No, Natalie, Tseyo is not having dinner with us," Krysta replied.

"So you're just going to leave him downstairs while we all eat?" she asked incredulously. "Even Vertex is allowed on the same floor when we have dinner."

"Vertex is a dog," Abe said. "He's a member of the family, and Tseyo's not." He nodded at Norm, who had commandeered the Schellers' food processor in order to turn the fruits Tseyo had brought with him into pasted food rations, and added, "Besides, it's not like we're starving him."

Norm took the opportunity to stop his work, look over his shoulder, and said, "You're the one who wants everyone on the team to trust each other, Abe. Meals are a central part of Na'vi trust-building."

Abe took a deep breath and replied, "Thank you, _Doctor Spellman_, but this isn't your conversation."

"I'm in the room, and I'm going to be at the table. I think I should have a say."

"Maybe you should go to the basement and tend to the alien," Krysta said, her every word dripping with contempt. "Natalie's right. He shouldn't be alone."

"You know I didn't mean it like that, Mom," Natalie said, her irritation plain. "Daddy, you brought him here for more than just to leave him locked in the basement. The least you could do is show him some decency and let him come up to eat with us."

"No," Abe said. "He's not coming up here, and that's final."

"Why?" she pressed. "Are you scared of him, or do you just not like him?"

"I'd kind of like to know that, too," Norm said with a wry grin. "I mean, what'd he ever do to you?"

Abe took a deep breath and bit his tongue. He had no intention of telling his wife and daughter about how close he came to being executed by the very alien he had brought into their house. Krysta would do her best to execute him for putting their lives in danger, and Natalie's life-long perceptions of the Na'vi – and his job – would be destroyed. The glare he gave Norm was enough to wipe the grin off his face, although Abe gave serious consideration to more physical means.

"Are you going to answer him?" Natalie asked.

Abe took a quick check of the house. The drapes were still drawn, and Vertex, despite his earlier statement, was being kept on the upper floor for the evening. He took another breath and said, "You know what? We should be asking Tseyo if he wants to eat with us. If he doesn't, that will put an end to this debate."

"And if he does?" Krysta asked.

"Then we'll make room," he said. Krysta clenched her teeth in response.

"I'll go talk to him," Norm said. He looked at Natalie and asked, "You want to take over here?"

"Sure," she said. "Once I finish setting the table."

In the brief moment that Natalie was out of earshot, Krysta sharply whispered to Abe, "What are you doing?"

"He won't accept the invitation," he replied. "I'm sure of it."

"If you're wrong, you get to sit next to him."

Abe chuckled and said, "Yeah, I don't see that happening."

About the same time that Natalie had begun to transfer the fruit paste into the foodpacks that were necessary for consuming food while wearing an exopack, Norm emerged from the basement with Tseyo behind him. Norm grinned and said, "He graciously accepted your invitation, Abe."

Abe looked at Tseyo and, through his mask, did not see the expression of someone who seemed genuinely pleased to be up among them. They stared at each other briefly, until Tseyo's attention was diverted by the television.

He looked over his shoulder at Krysta, who had already found a blank place card. She did not bother to write Tseyo's name down. Krysta simply placed the blank card to the right of Abe's place. He smirked at her and said, "If he strangles me, I know you'll be sorry."

"Later, maybe," she replied. "Try to enjoy your dinner before that happens, though."

* * *

Norm had not had to do much to convince him to come up from the home's roots. He had not slept very well, despite the exhaustion which overtook him once he settled into his hammock, and he had become too aware of the confined nature of the place. It was not comparable to the place he had been forced to sleep on his journey to this world, but he was quickly beginning to miss the freedom of his native land.

The pack and mask he was required to wear were not helping settle his unease. He was too aware of the pack's bulk, and the place where the mask stuck to his face was beginning to itch; but each time he reached up to scratch at it, the mask felt as though it had tightened further.

He felt a bit better when he was on the main level, and a moment of tension he shared with T'ngyute passed when he noticed the living artwork the other Sky People were watching. Tseyo recognized the device as a much larger version of the living stones Norm had used to teach him about this world, but the content was even stranger to him.

Two dark-skinned Sky People were crouched over the body of a third, bloodied and sprawled on a street, cautiously examining it and talking amongst themselves. Every once in a while, the image would change to show a wound – and then seemingly jump inside the wound to show a chaotic array of objects. Tseyo guessed that the others were learning healing techniques.

He did not have much time to digest the images, however, as T'ngyute's mate called them all to eat. She took Norm aside and had a brief conversation with him. At the end of it, Norm looked at Tseyo and asked, "How do you feel about sitting next to T'ngyute?"

He shrugged. "If he doesn't hurt me, I won't hurt him."

Norm grinned and replied, "I feel the same way." He nodded at the long, elevated, wooden plank and said, "T'ngyute is going to sit at the far end of the _table_," dropping in his native word when his Na'vi failed. "You'll be on his right, and I'll be on his left."

Tseyo raised his brow and asked, "He won't sit by his mate?"

Norm looked like he was at a loss to explain the circumstances, so he just shrugged. "I know it's weird," he said, "so let me know if you start to feel uncomfortable."

"I will," he said with a nod.

Tseyo did not bother with the wooden constructions that Sky People used to seat themselves. This was less to do with how comfortable – or uncomfortable – he was being seated in that way, but because he would tower over the Sky People if he sat like them. Even if a large part of him wanted to exert the superiority of the Na'vi to Sky People, meals were not the ideal place to do that.

Instead, he placed the object in a corner of the eating space and sat on the floor with his legs crossed; although that meant, rather than towering over the table, he was almost seated too low. His action earned him a cross look from T'ngyute's mate. Tseyo could not tell whether or not she appreciated the courtesy he was showing her by coming down to be at approximate eye level with her, but he chose to not dwell on it.

He tried to keep his curiosity in check – he felt awkward enough without wanting to appear like a child in front of the others – but he could not help himself from at least rubbing the tablecloth between his fingers. He was impressed by how well Sky People could weave such delicate fibers, far better than anything he knew his people could achieve with their looms. Tseyo wondered how many Sky People it took to operate the looms necessary to create this cloth.

Tseyo turned his attention to the polished and crafted stones in front of him. He easily recognized their respective purposes – a trident spear, a laughably dull knife, and a flattened ladle – and was again struck by the precision of the craftwork involved in their creation.

Max sat to his right, giving him a smile as he took his place. He said something in his own tongue that he did not understand; but Tseyo discerned from his tone that he was trying to be friendly, so he smiled and nodded in response.

T'ngyute's daughter approached the table and laid out the food for the meal. The alien, but not entirely unpleasant, smell came through his mask, but any eagerness to eat what was before him vanished when he recalled the first time he tried the packets of food Norm gave him in the course of his training. Whatever hopes remained of being freed from those packets were crushed when the daughter placed a packet in front of him.

"I am sorry if it is not as good as before," she said in his language. Her accent was good, but the slow, deliberate pace with which she pronounced the words made it clear the difficulty she had with the tongue.

Still, he appreciated her effort, so he smiled and, more slowly than was natural for him, replied, "I am sure it will be fine."

Norm said, "It's a mix of the fruit you carried with you. It should still be fresh."

With the food laid out, the rest of the Sky People came to the table. T'ngyute was the last to take a place at the table. Even though his face was almost expressionless, Tseyo could tell from his body language that he was more uncomfortable than he was letting on – and that gave him cause to smile.

Tseyo still recalled vividly the day T'ngyute was brought before the clan to be held to account for his deceptions, and he assumed that day lingered on in him as well. The blade which had been intended for T'ngyute's neck that day was fastened to Tseyo's belt, and no small part of him hoped he would get an excuse to use it.

T'ngyute gave a cue for the others to begin eating, and a familiar ritual unfolded. Tseyo was used to sitting around a fire pit, passing freshly carved pieces of meat among his brothers and sisters, or sharing from leaves bearing a multitude of fruits; the Sky People were doing likewise around the table, but he was unaccustomed to the many clangs that the metals and stones made in the process. He would have much preferred the crackling of a fire – especially in this cold place.

He sighed, took the food packet that had been laid before him, and reached for the straw that was affixed to his mask. At that moment the skin about the seal around his mask began to itch again. The noises of the food being passed about the table, and the minimal conversation, were replaced by an acute awareness of the mechanical clicks coming from his breathing pack.

More than anything else, Tseyo felt most alien from the others because of this contraption. They were breathing and eating just fine, whereas he was burdened with his mask. Without any explanation, he had accepted that the air outside of this place was poisonous, and he knew that the air from his home was poisonous to Sky People; but if they were fine in this place, should he not also be fine.

He took a deep breath and set the food package back on the table. Norm looked at him and asked, "Is everything okay?"

"No," he replied, and then reached for the straps of his mask.

* * *

"Wait!" Norm cried, but he could see the determination in Tseyo's eyes. He looked at Max and said, "Get his hand."

"Way ahead of you," Max replied as he reached over and grabbed Tseyo's wrist. Norm had a sickening realization in that instant. Tseyo, near the peak of his physical condition, was easily four or five times as strong as any human athlete; Max, on the other hand, was never an athlete, and over a decade on Pandora had substantially weakened his body. If Tseyo were so inclined, he could throw Max through one of the home's walls without having to stand up.

Tseyo appeared irritated, but he restrained from physically resisting. Instead, he glared at Norm and demanded in his own language, "Tell me why I have to have this on."

"I've already told you," he replied in kind. "The air here is toxic to you."

"Is he getting tired of the exopack?" Matthew asked.

"It'd seem so," Norm replied.

Matthew nodded and said, "You know, we've never _actually_ established that Earth's atmosphere would be poisonous to the Na'vi. We only know that we can't breathe their air."

"I don't want any medical experiments taking place at my dinner table," Krysta said. "Make him keep his mask on."

Matthew continued on as though she had not said anything. "We don't know that the same gases which are poisonous to us are vital to their survival, only that they can live with them. Those gases aside, Pandora's atmosphere isn't too dissimilar from Earth's. It has far less nitrogen, but about the same amount of oxygen – maybe a little less."

"And around four hundred times as much carbon dioxide," Norm added. "You can't just discount that."

He shrugged. "Maybe that contributes to their athleticism by making them more tolerant to anaerobic respiration than human bodies."

"When we did blood acidity tests on the avatar bodies," Max chimed in, "we found that the P-H levels were about what you'd see in a person who just ran a marathon."

"Somehow I think he's going to take it off whether we're here or not," Abe said. "Might as well have him do it with a couple of doctors in the room."

Norm and Max exchanged wary looks, and then Norm asked, "What're the worst possible side-effects? Short of death."

"Headaches, lightheadedness, nausea," Max offered. "It'd be like one of us in a high-oxygen environment." He paused and added, "Or so I guess."

Norm sighed and shook his head. "All right, fine. Let him get it out of his system."

Amy chuckled from the other end of the table and asked, "Your parents let you play with light sockets, didn't they?"

He grinned and replied, "Hot stovetops, too."

Reluctantly, Max loosened his grip on Tseyo's wrist, although Tseyo was able to shake him off without much trouble. As everyone watched with nervous anticipation, he removed the exopack mask. He took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before he exhaled. He then took a second breath, but this time clutched his throat and began to gasp.

Norm and Abe quickly stood while Max reached for the discarded mask; but as they gathered around Tseyo, he began to chuckle. He looked at Norm, removed his hands, and said with a beaming grin, "I'm fine."

He clenched his teeth and shook his head. "That wasn't funny."

Tseyo, still smiling, replied, "Yes it was. You'll see when you calm down."

Norm shook his head again and said to the others, "It's all right. He was just joking."

The three returned to their seats while the others, except for Abe and Krysta, laughed a little less than earnestly. When he was seated again, Abe said, "I want him to keep the mask on when he's sleeping, just in case any problems do develop."

Norm relayed the message to Tseyo, who frowned but said he would comply with the request. Afterwards, he removed the straw from the mask and inserted it in the food package. He did not appear to have any objections.

Norm, on the other hand, looked at the meal in front of him and was not very enthusiastic. Although he assumed the Schellers could afford actual meat, it certainly was not of a high grade. The vegetables were more than likely genetically altered and grown in an enclosed incubator "farm" with a concoction of chemicals that the Food and Drug Administration had been paid to sign off on. The mashed potatoes probably were not real, but then Norm was not sure he had ever seen, much less eaten, genuine mashed potatoes that he could feel like he was missing out.

He put together a mix of the ingredients on his fork and, after a silent wish for the best, took a bite. The taste was everything he expected – bland and followed by a medicine-like aftertaste. He reached for his glass of water in order to try to wash away the bitterness, but just as the water passed his lips, he could smell a hint of chlorine coming from the glass; and his mouth felt dry after consuming the water.

Norm looked at Max and Luke, his colleagues on Pandora, to gauge their reactions, and neither of them appeared too impressed.

"Who made this?" Amy asked.

"I did," Natalie replied. "I haven't made it for this many people before, though, so I hope I scaled it up right."

"I think you did," Amy said with a smile. "What do you think, Norm?"

If Natalie were cooking with ingredients last available in common markets over a century ago, he was sure the meal would have been great comfort food. However, unable to bring himself to lie boldly nor insult the daughter of the man sitting next to him, he said, "It's a good way to come back to Earth. Thank you, Natalie."

Max and Luke nodded, but did not offer any commentary of their own.

"You're welcome," Natalie replied before going back to her meal. Norm noticed Tseyo eyeing the dish containing a potential helping of shepherd's pie; and when Tseyo took notice of him, Norm very slightly shook his head. To his relief, Tseyo did not ask for clarification.

After a minute or two of silence, Krysta said, "Well, Abe, I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you that I had to sell your Mercedes."

Norm heard Abe almost choke. "My S-Class?" he asked incredulously. "You sold my S-Class?"

"They increased the taxes on both car ownership and for cars not meeting fuel efficiency standards," she replied calmly. "Plus with Nat's bills and schooling, it just didn't make sense to hold onto it."

"Plus," Natalie chimed in, "they upgraded the highway grid, and it would have cost more to upgrade your car's sensor panels to be compliant, since the care was an import."

Abe sat back in his chair and snorted. "So John Shore made it to Sacramento, huh?" Krysta and Natalie nodded. "Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. That's your typical liberal thinking. If things are going great, they'll tax people to get a cut of the action. If things are in the hole, they'll tax people to boost ineffective government programs."

Norm let out a sharp laugh and said, "Yeah, because the conservatives' runaway, capitalist agenda has done wonders for the planet. I mean, you obviously did well under it…"

"Excuse me?"

"…but the rest of us? I mean, this country was founded on the principals of the common good, and…"

"This country was founded on the principals of individual freedom…"

* * *

Norm and her father were too engaged in their fight to notice that everybody else had rolled their eyes and entered into separate conversations. Natalie's mom was digging into Colonel Hall's military career, Dawn and Luke had found a mutual interest in aeronautics, and Doctors Patel and Cook were talking genetics. Occasionally, though, the rancor of the conversation on that end of the table would pierce through everything else.

"Did it or did it not stop socialism from overrunning this country?" her father demanded.

"Socialism wasn't overrunning the country," he replied. "You people just couldn't stand losing an election and having a black man in the White House, so you threw him out and set the country back thirty years – sixty if you count the time it took to clean up your mess. Good job."

As their conversation went on, Natalie's attention was grabbed again from that end of the table. Tseyo looked at her with a perplexed expression and, nodding towards the quarreling duo, asked, "_Pemefol 'ut perängkxo_?"

"_Pemefoy__ä__tìpängkxo längu __ayoengy__ä__ ayolo'eyktan_," she replied with a frown.

He furrowed his brow and, after a moment's pause, smiled and said back to her, "'_Pemefo__ä__tìpängkxo längu __ayoengey__ä__ ayktan_,'" stressing the places where he was correcting her.

She let out a short laugh and said, "Thank you. I have not spoken Na'vi in a long time."

"It's not bad," he replied. "But you should make your words flow. Na'vi is like a river, or a song. Your tongue is like—," he sighed and looked as if he were searching for the right word. He settled for saying, "It's very rigid."

"It's how I learned it," she said in a half apology. "Maybe you could teach me to speak it better."

"Maybe," he replied, his smile fading somewhat. "There are other things that will happen first."

At first, Natalie could only nod in response, and then she thought to ask, "Can you speak English?"

He shook his head. "Norm taught me some things, but I can't speak it like some others in my tribe. I was too young to go to the school they built – when there was a school." Natalie wanted to inquire further, but Tseyo quickly changed the subject. "So, they're talking about 'leaders?'" She nodded again. "How many leaders do you have?"

Natalie chuckled and replied, "Too many."

"That's what it sounds like," he said. Tseyo paused and asked, "What's your name?"

"Natalie."

"Natalie," he repeated, although his accent caused him to put more stress on the vowels than there ought to have been. "Natalie, how did you come to speak Na'vi?"

She had to take a moment to recall the right words, and then she replied, "When I was very young, and I was very sick, my father taught me about your people in order to distract me from the illness. Because your people brought me peace of mind, I wanted to become closer to you."

Tseyo nodded slowly, and then smiled. "Thank you."

"Why did you want to come to Earth?"

His smile faded, and he took a while to respond. "It felt like the right thing to do."

"Does it still feel like the right thing to do?"

Tseyo looked over at Abe and Norm, whose quarrel had calmed down somewhat, but was still very heated. He sighed and said, "I don't know."

* * *

"Well, did you finally get it out of your system?" Amy asked as they got into bed.

"No," Norm replied. "I didn't get a chance to punch him. Then I'd be okay."

She frowned and shook her head. "Well, for the record, it's wrong to call everybody in the Party a racist. I mean, my dad was a precinct captain for them for years. He was even got elected to be a delegate to a couple of the conventions. And, well—," she stopped her sentence short in order to draw attention to the rich darkness of her skin. "I mean, I might as well go around saying all Democrats support slavery because they were the party of the South in the Civil War."

"Your party formed in reaction to…"

She interrupted him by placing a finger on his lips and saying, "The conversation's over, Norm."

He took a deep breath and nodded, offering a smile as a form of truce. Amy let the topic drop. Norm kicked off his pants and then pulled the bed covers up. "I was only asleep a few hours ago," he said. "I don't know how I'm going to go to sleep again so soon."

"Make the effort," Amy replied. "Too much is going to happen these next couple of days for your sleep cycle to be uneven. Hell, I doubt we'll be getting much sleep at all once the plan kicks off."

He placed a hand on her thigh and grinned. "Well, I know one trick that could help get me to sleep."

She chuckled and casually removed his hand. "I'm not quite there, yet."

Norm sighed and dared to ask, "Are you ever going to be?"

"I think I'm better now than I was a month ago – actually, I guess that ought to be five years ago – but a lot of those feelings are still raw."

"So talk to me," he replied. "What's still raw? What can I do?"

Amy was quiet for a while, and then she asked, "What would you have done if you were too late?"

"What?"

"You know what I mean," she said. "What if when you showed up that day, my throat had already been cut. What would you have done?"

The scenario had not occurred to him – not because he did not ever think it was impossible, but because it had been too terrible for him to think about. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment to think about his response, but after a while he could only shake his head and say, "I don't know."

Her eyes widened. "You don't know?" she asked, shocked. "You seriously don't know?"

"I seriously don't know," he replied. "But I can tell you how I was _before_ it happened. I was furious that Jake had forced me to give you up. I was angry that my friends wouldn't see how wrong he was, that they didn't care about what could happen. I was terrified about what could happen because, even then, I just didn't know what I would have done next."

She was quiet for a while, and he knew her well enough to know that she was trying to find any hint of insincerity in his answer. The silence seemed like it would linger on indefinitely until she asked, "What did you do after Trudy died?"

Norm had not discussed Trudy with her but a handful of times, and he had tended to be vague. Almost two decades on, that wound remained raw for him. He hesitated to answer, but he took a deep breath and said, "I looked for her. I took satellite pictures of the battlefield every day looking for any evidence that she was alive. I did it for a couple of weeks until Max found out, and he pretty much laid out for me that she was gone."

He shook his head and continued, "It didn't seem right, you know? In the movies, the good guys always get the girls at the end. But while everybody else got to build up relationships, I was kind of left alone. It didn't seem like there was any chance to move on."

"If you're wanting me to be her, Norm…"

"No," he interrupted. "No, I want you to be you. That's who I want to be with. But if I screwed up so badly with you that we can't be together, then I need you to tell me. I can't not move on a second time."

Amy was quiet for a while, and then she said, "I still think we can be together, but what I haven't gotten over is that you thought I wasn't being honest with you when I said I didn't want to hurt the Na'vi, much less turn a blind eye to the murder of an innocent girl."

"I remembered your reaction when I showed you the video from the attack on their home," he replied. "It just struck me as kind of cold."

"That's because I didn't have anything to do with that attack," she said. "Because I've seen worse in my career, and because I still believe the Na'vi could have made better choices themselves. But honestly, if I were there, I probably would have been shoulder-to-shoulder with Trudy in refusing to fire. It was wrong, but I can't apologize for it."

Norm looked at the ceiling again and said, "Can't we just talk about politics? I think that would be easier."

She chuckled and replied, "You liberals always want to change the subject when it gets too heavy for you to handle." Norm could only sigh in response. Amy kissed his hand and said, "Let's make it through this mission before we talk more about us, okay? We have enough to worry about as it is."

* * *

Natalie awoke to what sounded like singing, although it was faint through her door. She waited a while to see if it was her imagination, but the noise continued. She was certain Tseyo had gone to sleep several hours earlier; but recalling what Doctor Patel had said about the possible side-effects of his taking off his exopack, she wanted to be sure he was not in trouble.

She got out of bed and opened her door to the main basement room. Tseyo was sitting on the floor, his back turned to her, quietly singing. What struck her most, however, was how starkly the bioluminescent markers on his body made him stand out against the otherwise pitch darkness of the basement. She could also discern, although only just, that the lights were changing colors, transitioning from a pale violet to a more pure white. Natalie wondered if that was a natural reaction to the singing, or something he was controlling.

She watched and listened to him for a few more minutes, as much to make sure he was not in any physical distress as to try and learn the songs he was singing. However, as time went on, she realized she was neither experienced enough in Na'vi physiology to know if he was in distress or not, nor was she able to pick up on more than a few words at a time. And so Natalie decided to go upstairs and wake Norm in order to get his opinion.

Natalie had not taken more than a few steps towards the stairwell when Tseyo abruptly stopped singing and looked at her. She bit her lower lip and then said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you."

"Were you asleep?" he asked. She nodded. "I didn't mean to wake you," he said.

She frowned and replied, "Your songs sounded very sad. Are you okay?"

"I think I'm better now," he said with a faint smile. "The songs help me focus my energy."

What few books Natalie had read – and only because there were so few available – about Na'vi culture had made her aware of the importance the Na'vi placed on maintaining their balance with Eywa and the world around them, but there were few details about how the Na'vi maintained personal balance. Although Natalie knew she ought to either wake Norm or wish Tseyo well and go back to bed, she did not want to pass on a learning opportunity. "What made your energy unfocused?" she asked. "Can I help?"

Tseyo hesitated before he replied. "I would appreciate being able to talk to someone."

"Do you want me to wake Norm?"

"No," he said. "Norm is a good teacher, but I don't need him right now." He nodded towards the floor in front of him and said, "Would you mind speaking with me for a while?"

She smiled and shook her head, and then proceeded to sit cross-legged in front of him. Natalie felt both excited and awkward being this close to him – excited for the opportunity to be able to finally spend time with him, and awkward because, though he was also sitting, she felt that she had to crane her neck to look him in the eye.

He must have picked up on her awkwardness, because he went from his sitting position to lie on his stomach, propping his upper body on his elbows to be at eye level. "You said your father told you stories about my people." She nodded. "What stories did he tell you?"

"Nothing specific," she replied. "He only described your people, and your world, broadly. What I remember most are the pictures, and…," she stopped short as she felt herself beginning to blush.

Tseyo's brow arched in curiosity, and he seemed to sense her sudden unease. He grinned and pressed, "What about the pictures?"

Natalie sighed, laughed nervously, and then continued, "…and I remember thinking to myself how great their tails were." She knew her cheeks had to be bright red, and she found it difficult to maintain eye contact.

As she looked away, Tseyo chuckled and said, "You have good perception. Often a person's tail will say more about that person's mood or intentions than their face or their words."

That was not entirely what she was getting at, but she nodded her head, took a deep breath, and said, "Yeah, I really liked them."

Natalie managed to look at him again, and his grin had become more wry. He looked over his shoulder and asked, "Do you like _my_ tail?"

Natalie was not about to say that, as she grew older, there were other features of a male's lower anatomy that she would rather cast her eyes on. However, as her brief glance at the end of his tail, which was curled up and idly wagged, like the tail of a curious cat, became a longer gaze about the base of his tail, she felt as though she had already given herself away. She had a horrible thought that perhaps she had come too close to a colloquialism that had not made its way into her Na'vi lesson books. She felt herself become flush again, though not her cheeks; and when she looked back at Tseyo, his wry grin seemed even more telling that it had been a moment earlier.

Natalie closed her eyes tightly, buried her face in her hands, and began to laugh, hoping it might help break her embarrassment – or maybe, in lieu of having a paper bag, that she would prevent herself from slipping into a panic attack. Tseyo, however, was relentless and pressed, "Well?"

"It's very nice," she said from behind her hands. "Can we not talk about tails anymore?"

Tseyo laughed, and eventually she had the courage to look at him again. He smiled and said, confirming Natalie's suspicions, "I'm sorry, Natalie. I was mean for me to tease you." He chuckled and added, "But it was very funny."

"For you!"

"I'm sorry," he said, although he was still smiling. "So, you thought about Na'vi tails, and you were cured of your sickness?"

She shook her head slightly, first at his insistence on pressing the taboo subject, and then more directly as she gathered her thoughts and found the right words to respond. "No, I'm still sick. I little while ago, I thought I was cured, but that turned out to be false hope."

Tseyo's smile faded and he asked, "How are you sick?"

She struggled for a moment. "I don't know the right words to describe it. It's something on – in – my neck that's growing, or wants to grow, and there is no medicine to stop it."

Natalie saw his eyes dart about as he furrowed his brow. "Your neck looks normal. Where is this thing? How did it get inside you?"

"I was born with it," she replied, "and you can't see it." Natalie moved closer to him and leaned forward, pulling back the collar of her pajama top, and said, "You can feel it, though."

A very large part of her hoped that Tseyo would politely – or even rudely – decline, but shortly after her invitation, she heard him shift his weight and bring a hand to her neck. His fingers felt tough and callused, the result of a lifetime of working with wood and rawhide, but he had the delicate touch of someone who was used to treating others' wounds.

He first touched the nape of her neck, just above where the malady lay. Rather than correct him, she closed her eyes and let his fingers move over her neck. It did not last long, however, as he said, "I can't find anything."

Natalie put one of her hands over his and guided him to the spot. Having lived with it her whole life, she knew right away when his fingers were over it. "There," she said. "Do you feel it?"

A moment later, he withdrew his hand and sighed. "I know that sickness," he said. She looked up at him with her eyebrows raised, and he continued, "Sometimes, just before our world passes into the darkness of the Great Moon, there will be streams of light in the sky – day and night – and the plants will glow more brilliantly. When we come out of that darkness, there will always be a few people who will discover those lumps under their skin."

Natalie assumed Tseyo did not have concept of solar winds and radiation, but she knew very well what he was describing. It was common knowledge that Pandora was, for humans, a radioactive hotbed. If the toxic air would not kill a person, the ever-present, intense radiation would. The orbital characteristics of Pandora also meant that it could receive an additional dose of radiation when it passed behind Polyphemus, at which time solar winds would transfer radiation from that gas giant's outer atmosphere to the unfortunate moon.

However, she was also well aware of the Na'vi's symbiotic relationship with their world's flora, and so she asked, "Can you cure it?"

"Many have asked Eywa for guidance, but—." He closed his eyes, shook his head, and then continued, "Sometimes we can remove the afflicted body part, but many will not allow that." Natalie had a terrifying image of what a Paleolithic amputation might look like, and she could not blame anyone for refusing that kind of treatment. She certainly would. Tseyo opened his eyes and frowned, "I am very sorry, Natalie."

She took a deep breath and replied, "Don't feel sorry for me. I've lived this long, and I intend to live much longer."

Tseyo smiled. "You have a warrior's heart. That is very good."

"It's my life," she said. "I will fight for it." Tseyo just nodded. She took a breath and asked, "When you said people ask Eywa for guidance, is that what you were doing in your songs?"

He shook his head. "The songs were given to us by Eywa, but we do not seek guidance through them." Tseyo reached behind him and took hold of his queue, brining it around to show her. "_Tsahik_ will take us to the tree at Eywa's heart, and we will make the bond there." As he spoke, as though it were anticipating such a bond, the braided sheath at the end of the queue opened to reveal a mass of undulating, neural tendrils.

Fixed on the display of alien anatomy and even more distant concept of interconnectedness, she asked, "What is like?"

"If your energy is in harmony," he said in a low tone, as though he were speaking of something deeply profound, "you will hear all the ancestors speaking. Above those voices, the greatest _tsahiks_ and people will hear Eywa."

"Have you heard Eywa?"

He shook his head. "Few people do," he said. "Only the ones in perfect balance can."

"Do they say what it sounds like?"

"Like a beautiful song."

They were silent for a while after that, lost in their own contemplations. Eventually, the queue's tendrils returned to the sheath, and he returned the queue to his back. He took a deep breath and said, "The songs I was singing were about that bond, about keeping my energy pure so I can achieve it." He looked around and continued, "I'm afraid that I won't be able to do that here."

Natalie frowned and looked down at her hands, as though she would be able to find an appropriate answer sitting in front of her. Something else occurred to her, however, and she stood up. "I'll be right back."

She returned to her room and found her touch-screen music player, along with two pairs of remote ear buds. Returning to Tseyo, she set the player between them and scrolled through her extensive collection of music, every once in a while looking up to see Tseyo's eyes darting along with her finger, as though he were trying to keep up with the album images which flashed across the screen.

When she found the aria she was looking for, she inserted her ear buds and instructed Tseyo to do likewise with the second pair. He appeared skeptical, but complied. When they were in, she started the composition.

The string section was first, but the soprano made her entrance a few seconds later. Like the orchestra backing her, she started at the low end of her range, making a humble plea to her goddess to unveil her beauty unto the world. Her zeal increased as the prayer continued. A chorus joined her plea, while she, in crescendo, asked her goddess to bring peace with her beauty.

When the aria ended, Natalie held her breath while she looked at Tseyo for his reaction. He appeared frozen in place, his eyes looking not at her, but past her. A moment later he took a breath and said, "If this is not what the _tsahiks _describe, then the beauty they know goes beyond words." His focus came back to her, and he asked, "Why couldn't you have been the envoy of your people?"


	12. Cat and Mouse, Part I

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

"It's been thirty-six hours," he said sternly. "Don't tell me you don't have anything."

The younger executive on the video call hesitated before he said, "I don't have a lot."

"That almost sounds worse than having nothing."

"Mister Chairman, the debris field covers a mile and a half, and the resulting fire spread over fifteen acres. They couldn't even get to the heart of the crash site until last night. Between the fire and the firefighters, there just wasn't a lot left," he explained. "It will take time for forensics to start putting the pieces together."

James Savage sighed, although to some it sounded more like a growl. "Who do I have to call?" he asked. "Who's leading the investigation?"

"That's the second problem," his subordinate, Franklin Ashworth, for two years the head of AMIS, replied. "It's a jurisdictional nightmare."

"A spacecraft falls out of the sky, and nobody knows what to do with it?" He snorted. "That's what the ICA is for!"

"ICA has definitive jurisdiction over the _Cybele_ investigation," the executive said. "The crash, on the other hand, happened on American soil. As such, NTSB is claiming jurisdiction over the scene, since we don't allow the UN to conduct domestic investigations. In the meantime, both ICA and the FAA are fighting it out over the illegal reentry of the craft."

"That seems secondary."

"It is, sir, but it also means that neither ICA nor FAA is going to release any recordings until there's a final determination."

Savage sighed again. "Do you know who would've gotten the recordings by now?"

"Who, sir?"

"Abe."

The executive frowned. "I'm not Abe Scheller."

"That's who I'm paying you to be!" he yelled.

Soon after James Savage learned about Abe's treason, he purged the AMIS staff, starting with Abe's hand-picked successor. However, the man he hired to head up the department was incapable of following through in destroying the Scheller family. After a string of embarrassing, semi-public defeats in court, Savage hired Franklin. Although he was a shrewd investigator, he was annoyingly deferential to protocols.

"Well, Mister Chairman, how would Abe have gone about resolving all this?"

"I don't know," he replied. "The less I knew about how he did what he did, the better off I was." Savage got out of his chair and walked towards the glass wall of his penthouse. He took a moment to survey the RDA campus before he turned his eyes to the San Francisco skyline. At half a mile up, sitting atop RDA's headquarters, his penthouse offered an unrivaled, panoramic view of the Bay Area. Though the first rays of light had emerged over the horizon, their radiance was diminished by the smog which blanketed the city.

"So what do you want me to do, sir?" Franklin asked.

"Nothing," he replied. "You haven't done anything so far, so why bother starting now?" He turned back towards the video screen and continued, "_I'm_ going to have lunch with Justice Keane, and we're going to figure out this jurisdictional mess. One of our ships just crashed, and we're sitting around waiting for the news to tell us what's what."

"Actually, the media blackout has been effective," Franklin replied, a hint of optimism in his voice. "So far they're playing that it was a light aircraft crash. The public knows less than we do."

"And we know less than we should!" He returned to his chair and asked, "Has ICA said anything about the _Cybele_ itself?"

Franklin sighed, apparently in relief that he was being asked something he could respond to in detail. "Yes, we do have some preliminary findings from the recovery team. There is evidence of some kind of impact or shielding malfunction that resulted in an inner hull breach. It was severe enough to prevent the crew from accessing the command module."

"Do they know what caused it?"

"Not yet. There was also one crewmember left behind in cryo, a Devon Angler. According to Abe's files, he…"

"He was the infiltrator," Savage interrupted. "Yeah, I remember Abe's crew. Is he talking?"

"No, sir, he's a vegetable."

Savage shrugged. "We can fix that nowadays. Get him woken up. He has to know something."

"Yes, sir."

He sighed again and said, "All right, until we find a corpse with Abe's ID, let's assume he's still alive. Where does he go? What does he do?"

"If his goal is to expose us, he'd go to the media," Franklin replied. "There hasn't been any chatter so far."

"He's been gone for eleven years," Savage said. "It will take him time to reestablish contacts, and he certainly didn't win any friends in journalism while he had your job."

"He'll need a base of operations to do that, and he certainly can't use our facilities."

"Where does his family live?"

"I – I don't know. Somewhere in the Bay Area, anyway."

Savage's patience was beginning to wear thin. He glared at Franklin and asked, "How do you _not_ know? We've been at this for over a day, and you haven't run down his basic information?"

"Sir, we didn't expect him back so soon," Franklin replied. "Furthermore, we expected him to be in custody, not missing in a spacecraft accident. We don't have any assets lined up for this investigation."

"You don't need assets to pull his employee file."

"No, sir." Franklin diverted his attention for a moment, and then looked back at the camera. "The last known address is in Livermore." He shook his head, "Mister Chairman, with all due respect, Abe Scheller is a legend in our 'profession.' Running home when you're trying to evade detection is a rookie mistake."

"So you don't expect him to be there?"

"No, sir."

"Then he's there. I think they call it, 'hiding in plain sight.'"

Franklin did not appear to be persuaded, but he was smart enough not to fight back too hard. "You're aware that his wife owns and operates a private security and investigations consulting firm, right?"

"Yeah, so what?"

"By all accounts, she's damned good at it; and she probably has every half-decent and better private investigator on the West Coast in her list of contacts," he replied. "God knows she knows who all of our assets are, or at least their tactics. Finding someone 'off the grid,' so to speak, to investigate is going to take time."

"By which I hope you mean to say that you'll have somebody identified by the time I'm sitting down with the Honorable David Keane for lunch," he replied.

"I mean it's going to take time," Franklin said resolutely. "Sir, do you want this done right, or do you want it done quickly?"

Savage hardened his glare and replied, "I'm the richest man on Earth. I get to have it both ways." He took a breath and continued, "You said it yourself, 'Abe is a legend.' He's smarter than you are, and he wrote the playbook you're using. You need to step up your game, and step it up fast. If you make a mistake now, he'll win."

"I understand, sir."

"I hope so," he replied. "I want the next update at two o'clock, and it had better be more impressive than what you gave me this time around."

* * *

Norm woke up to someone pushing his shoulder. The only thing more unpleasant to him than that was when he heard who it was.

"Get up," Abe said. "We have a long day ahead of us." Norm rolled over to see what Amy thought of Abe's bold intrusion to their room – even if it was Abe's house – but Abe was ahead of him. "She's already up."

"Where is she?"

"Everyone's having breakfast. Shower quickly, get dressed, and join them."

Norm snorted and said, "Good morning to you, too." Abe left without saying another word.

Although he disapproved of Abe issuing orders to him as though he were a subordinate, he followed the instructions anyway. Sure enough, the rest of the team, minus Tseyo, was picking at a facsimile buffet breakfast, while Natalie and Krysta washed the cooking utensils and already discarded dishes. The spread and the others' casual attitude towards the meal made the house feel more like a private bed and breakfast inn than a rich man's residence.

Norm was further surprised that Abe had shed his usual business-like attire for faded jeans and a years-old button-up shirt that he left open to display a tee-shirt. His hair was also barely styled, if at all. But the moment that he let himself believe that Abe could be truly causal was fleeting. Abe looked up from his plate and said, "Took you long enough."

"Abe, I don't know what the Hell you've got planned today," Norm replied. "How am I supposed to be responsible for not keeping to your schedule if you haven't shared it with me?"

Abe nodded and said, "That's fair. We have some errands to run in the city."

"Why can't you do it alone?"

"Because this kind of work is better done with a teammate than solo," he replied. "Plus, this factors into your mission role."

Norm was inclined to ask if the kind of work Abe had in mind was illegal, but given his current situation, he knew that would be a ridiculous question. Instead he asked as he approached a tray with strips of bacon laid out, "Who's going to look after Tseyo? I assume he's not coming."

"Doctor Patel will keep him company."

Norm shook his head as he bit into the imitation pork product. "Max doesn't speak Na'vi."

Abe sighed. "I know," he said. "But Dawn has her part of the mission to prepare for, and Doctor Patel has made it clear he's only staying with us until he sees his own agenda through."

Norm nodded. While he had spent most of his time working with Jake to prepare for RDA's return, Max had spent his years on Pandora consolidating Doctor Augustine's field notes. Rather than let them fall into the black hole of RDA's archives – or be used by RDA's researchers for less than noble purposes – he was lining up contacts throughout academia to distribute the body of work as widely as humanly possible.

"I can look after him," Natalie offered from the kitchen. "I think we're getting along well enough."

Abe shook his head and replied, "I thought your mother and I made it clear that we don't want you spending time with him alone."

"And I thought it would be obvious to you by now that I'm twenty years old and can make decisions for myself," she retorted. "Besides, neither of you has given me a reason to stay away from him."

"Because he isn't here to make friends," he said. "He's here to help us stop the Chairman from making a really, really big mistake, and then he's going home."

"So if it were up to you, you'd just keep him boxed away until you needed him, and then get rid of him when you're done?"

"She's smart," Norm said with a grin.

Abe shot him a glare and then replied, "No, that's not what I'm saying."

"Are you going to lock me up until this is all over?"

"No!"

"Then it's pretty ridiculous to think that our paths aren't going to cross, isn't it, Daddy?" She snorted and added, "I mean, he's sleeping right outside my room."

Abe seemed at a loss for a response. While normally this would not have bothered Norm, for Tseyo's benefit, he half-heartedly came to Abe's defense. "Natalie, we've taken Tseyo out of his normal surroundings," he said. "You don't know if you might say something that will trigger a stress response."

"Do you?" she asked.

When she turned her attention from her father to Norm, he was startled by the intensity in her eyes, even from a distance. Her expression was calm, but she was clearly not going to back down from her position. It was, without question, a look that Norm had only seen Abe pull off to any effect. It had been unnerving to him on their first encounter; but having taken Natalie for being more compassionate, seeing her use it to effect almost knocked him off his feet.

He just shook his head and replied, "No."

"All right," she said with a nod. "So the way I see it, either we can all sit here and wait for Tseyo to crack, or we make the attempt to keep him calm."

"There isn't a zoo we could just turn him over to, is there?" Krysta asked.

"Mom!"

"It's a legitimate question, Natalie," she snapped back. "Because once this plan of yours is over, Abe, I'm not going to let him come back here – somehow I think _a lot_ of people aren't going to let humanity's first alien visitor just hang out in our basement once they're aware he's here."

"They certainly didn't let the Roswell aliens chill with a farmer," Matthew said from the living room.

"That's because they all died in their crash," Dawn replied. "Tseyo survived ours."

Abe stood up from the dining room table and said, "We don't have time to keep arguing this."

"You owe me an answer," Krysta said.

"Homeland Security," Abe replied with a grin. "They have jurisdiction over deporting illegal aliens."

Norm was repulsed by the quip, but he also could not help himself from chuckling. "Yeah, I'm sure Tseyo would love Arizona's concentration camps."

Abe shook his head and continued, "You're right, Love, that when we finish with our work, every federal and international organization with at least three letters in their acronyms will descend to take Tseyo off your hands – and we're not going to stop them. I'm sure, though, RDA will be forced to float the bill for sending him home."

Norm was more serious when he asked, "So you've figured that part out, then?"

"No." He shook his head again and said, "We need to go." He looked at Natalie, sighed, and said, "All right, since you're probably going to defy me and your mother no matter what we say, if you want to take on Tseyo as your responsibility, fine."

She gave him a slight bow and said, "Thank you, Daddy. I..."

He held a hand up to stop her from saying anything further. "But – and I'm only going to tell you this once – that means you have to make sure he's focused when it comes time for him to do his job. If he's not, forget that I'm your father and that you're only twenty. You will be accountable. Understand?"

An uneasy silence settled over the house. Norm took a quick survey of Abe's one-time employees, and the expressions on their faces seemed to say that they had heard that tone from him before, and that it was not something to challenge. Krysta seemed perfectly comfortable. Natalie, however, appeared, if only for a moment, taken aback.

Natalie's expression hardened, and she nodded. "It's a deal."

Abe smiled and gave Krysta a kiss on her cheek. "Thank you for breakfast," he said. "We'll be back this afternoon."

"I'll call Tom a little bit later this morning," she replied. "And remember that anything above six is a rip-off."

Before he had a chance to process that information, Abe began walking towards the garage. It was built to hold three cars, but there was only a single minivan parked. Abe sighed as he took the keys out of his pocket and said, "I can't believe she sold my car."

Norm was far from heartbroken. Instead, he asked, "So all of a sudden you're fine with Natalie hanging around Tseyo?"

"She was going to do it anyway," Abe replied as he unlocked the minivan. "Might as well stop trying to control the uncontrollable."

"That strikes me as lazy parenting," Norm said as he opened his door.

Abe glared at him again and said, "If you're accusing me of not loving my daughter..."

"No," he interrupted. "I'm saying that yesterday you were freaking out that they would essentially be sharing a room, and now you're just shrugging it off."

"When I brought Tseyo here, I assumed he'd have the basement to himself. That's not the reality of the situation, and it's too late to do anything about it now. But you're wrong if you think that I'm suddenly comfortable with it."

Norm let the issue drop, and then got into the minivan. The seatbelts automatically came down once they were seated, and when Abe inserted the key into the ignition, a series of lights flashed from the sides of the rearview mirror. A panel on the center of the dashboard activated, displaying a keyboard, and a voice said, "I'm sorry, but the optical scanners do not show that the owner or licensed driver of this vehicle is present. Please enter the security code in the next fifteen seconds, or this vehicle will be permanently disabled."

"What the hell?" Norm asked.

"No big deal," Abe replied as he typed in a code. "You've never seen an anti-theft device before?"

Norm snorted. "The anti-theft devices I'm most familiar with are pretty low-tech."

"Thank you," the disembodied voice said. "Where would you like to go today?"

"Cancel auto-routing," he said. "Activate manual drive."

"I'm sorry," the voice replied, "but manual driving is not available in your area. Where would you like to go today?"

It was Abe's turn to be surprised. "What the hell?"

Apparently the developers of the guide software anticipated a few angry drivers. The voice replied, "Manual driving was discontinued in the San Francisco Greater Metropolitan Area after September Thirty, Twenty-One Sixty-Seven. Any attempt to disengage your vehicle's automated driving software will result in notification to local authorities, and you may be subject to applicable fines and jail time, as determined by your municipality. Where would you like to go today?"

Abe rubbed his temples and said, "Fine, intersection of Mission Street and Twenty-Fourth Street, San Francisco."

"I'm sorry, but as part of the San Francisco Greater Metropolitan Area's congestion remediation plan, that location has been restricted to pedestrians and non-motorized traffic. Would you like me to find the nearest parking garage?"

Abe rested his forehead on the steering wheel, which given the earlier announcement, seemed to be a most impractical addition, and sighed. "No, go back to previous destinations." He looked at the list again and said, "Holly Park Parking."

"Calculating route." A moment later, the garage door opened. "Integrating you to the local traffic grid." The minivan moved forward without any human input.

"What happens if the grid crashes?" Norm asked.

"Either all the cars stop, or we all crash into each other," Abe replied with a shrug. "Unless they're smart enough to give us the option of driving ourselves."

"Estimated time to destination is one hour, seven minutes. Would you like me to find a station for you?"

Norm felt his stomach turn at the thought of being stuck in a confined space with Abe for that period of time.

"National news," Abe replied. He then quickly added, "Disable voice commands."

The cabin was silent for a short time while the satellite tuner conducted a search. By the time the minivan pulled out of the gated community which housed the Schellers, it had identified a channel. The dashboard panel cascaded the route map in order to display a commercial for luxury vacations to the last pristine beaches on Earth. At its conclusion, the screen cut to a talk show-like news set, where a male and female anchor team was engaged in idle banter. A second later, the female turned to the camera and said, "Welcome back to 'American Saturday,' America's number one source for in depth analysis of all the news which made headlines this week.

"Turning briefly to California, authorities are still investigating the cause of Thursday evening's crash outside of the central valley city of Tracy." The screen showed firefighter crews battling blazes in the middle of the night. "Some independent sources have suggested that the crash was prompted by an emergency onboard a ship returning from the Alpha Centauri system. RDA spokesperson Janet Tullman refuted the allegations in a statement, saying all of its ships are accounted for, and the advance team sent to Pandora over eleven years ago is not due back for another nine months. Neither ICA, NTSB, nor California Highway Patrol have commented, saying that their investigation is ongoing."

Abe chuckled and shook his head. "Amateurs."

"What?"

"A cable news network should not be covering this crash, so that's a containment breach on RDA's part." He looked at Norm and said with a smile, "It means we're not going up against real talent."

Norm sighed and said, "Indulge me, Abe. If you were on the other end, how would you be managing the cover up? How do you keep a spaceship crash out of the news?"

"You can't," Abe replied. "But you _can_ keep it from being covered in the first ten minutes of a news show's broadcast. So, okay, these 'independent sources' are probably RDA's competitors who listen to all orbital traffic for any mention of an RDA ship in distress. Now, they can't say that they're conducting that kind of corporate espionage, so they route the information through some third party, 'independent source.'

"So, I'd go back to the press with, say, falsified travel logs of some junker transport that hasn't been used in six or seven years and say _that_'s what crashed. The press goes back to its 'independent sources' to get verification, which would force the competition to reveal their tactics – which, again, they won't want to do. So the press runs with our story. Since nobody gives a shit about some junk shuttle going between Earth and the Moon, it gets mentioned at the tail end of local news, maybe gets linked to on national media websites, and then goes away."

"Then what about the government?"

Abe shook his head. "They've got too much to worry about. If the people aren't demanding answers, and if you know your way inside a bureaucracy, these sorts of things get buried. I mean, sure, some diligent bureaucrat will eventually produce a report in a few years, but nobody will pay attention to its release."

Norm took a moment to think about what Abe had said, and then asked, "Did it ever occur to you, at any point in your professional career, that you might want to do something else with your life other than manipulate information for a corporation?"

Abe raised an eyebrow and replied, "Whom would you rather I do it for? A politician? A news network?"

"I'd rather you not do it at all."

He snorted and said, "I should have expected that. Norm, the whole of human history is built on manipulations. I'd hazard a guess and say that it's as old a profession as prostitution."

"That's a fair comparison," Norm said with a chuckle. "I mean, you kind of were RDA's whore, weren't you?"

Abe paused, looked at him sideways, and then continued, "The point is that in the information age, the ones who control the information are kings. Who hasn't wanted to be the lord of their own kingdom?"

"You're not just controlling information," he replied. "You're exploiting people's ignorance."

Abe shrugged. "That's what we whores do," he said. "It's all about exploiting people's weaknesses."

They were quiet for a while longer. The news continued with stories about ever-degrading air quality, famine in Africa, and flare-ups of violence in a number of energy-producing nations. Norm shook his head and said, "They sound like headlines from when I left."

"Yeah," Abe replied quietly. "Not a whole lot's changed."

"If nothing's changed in twenty-four years, in a way doesn't that mean things have gotten worse?"

Abe did not respond.

Several minutes later, the minivan turned onto the Five-Eighty interstate. As it crested a hill just outside Dublin, the tallest spires of RDA's headquarters came into view. They ducked behind a canyon wall shortly thereafter, but remained visible from Castro Valley onwards.

Up to this point, Norm had not noticed much different about the cityscape. Livermore, Pleasanton, and Dublin were, as when he left, a loosely connected suburbia of upper class, gated communities which managed to survive urban sprawl due to the wealth and influence of its residents. However, on the other side of the mountain range, it was clear to him that urban development had continued on unchecked.

Earthquakes destroyed San Francisco in the latter half of the last century, just as the effects of climate change were being felt in force in the United States. City planners, engineers, and politicians felt that they had been given a golden opportunity to construct a model urban environment: Alternate modes of transportation, green spaces, and self-contained apartment towers. Nature had taken care of bulldozing or burning down almost every structure in the Bay Area – and either killing off or forcibly relocating most of the property holders – allowing the reconstruction went as planned for the first couple of decades.

By the time Norm was born, high speed rails had effectively connected every major urban center on the planet. As conditions worsened in the developing world, hundreds of thousands of workers poured into San Francisco looking for work – and then when the work was done, they refused to leave. San Francisco's downtown was "green" insofar as only the extremely wealthy could afford to live there; and communities like Livermore fought with everything they had to keep the population from spilling over and interfering with their accustomed lifestyles.

And so, with rare exception, the area between the mountains and the eastern shore of the Bay had become a continuous, poorly planned urban slum. Where once had been middle class housing now towered low-income apartment blocks. Every once in a while they would drive past an outpost of higher-class condominiums, but they maintained a large buffer zone with the rest of the city.

It was not until they crossed the Bay that Norm saw a semblance of the kind of planned city of the future that the revivers of San Francisco had in mind. The roads were wider and lined on either side by maintained parks. The buildings which constituted the core of the downtown area were all built to the highest standards of environmental design – even RDA's half-mile high headquarters was designed to meet such standards.

Unfortunately, downtown San Francisco was an oasis caught in a sandstorm. Whatever benefits its design offered were outweighed by the worldwide decay – not every city could be so fortunate to be obliterated by an earthquake and start over. So it was that Norm was able to spot a morning jogger who, as he made a circuit on the roadside park in the morning shadows of LEED-certified platinum office buildings, had to stop to adjust his exopack.

Norm might have cried, were he not so worried about Abe exploiting his weakness.

* * *

The winter Sun was comfortably over the horizon when the minivan finished its automated route at the parking garage underneath Holly Park. Abe found the garage was frustratingly automated, even if it was in the name of convenience. Although he was sure there no sane person would, if given the choice, choose to circle a parking lot for minutes on end looking for a space, Abe always reveled in being able to spot that one open parking space that no other driver had yet seen.

The parking garage's computerized terminal interfaced with the computer in the minivan. After it stopped at a kiosk so they could get a ticket, the parking garage continued them on a path to an elevator. A voice came into the cabin, and it instructed Abe and Norm to leave the car on and exit. Once they were clear of the elevator, the minivan dropped six stories to a lower level, where it would continue on to a parking space.

Abe and Norm made their way to the surface and then on to Mission Street. They walked north where, at the intersection of Mission and Cesar Chavez Streets, a sign welcomed them to the San Francisco Congestion-Free Zone. Abe looked at the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Cesar Chavez and snorted, wondering how much of it could be alleviated if they opened the roads up again.

As they crossed into the pedestrian haven, Norm asked, "Do you want to tell me where we're going?"

"An 'independent source' of mine," he replied casually.

"Are you sure he's still around?"

"Positive."

They walked for another half mile until they reached the site of Abe's contact. A hole-in-the-wall pub named, "The Bog," it saw its best business weekend nights, although it was far from one of San Francisco's hot spots. It being Saturday morning when Abe and Norm arrived, Abe was not surprised when Norm displayed some skepticism at Abe's choice for a rendezvous. "This is it?"

"This is it," Abe replied.

Norm went to the door and gave it a pull. "They're not even open!"

"Of course not. It's not even ten-o-clock." Abe ducked into an alley which led to the service entrance at the back of the pub, then knocked on the back door – twice before someone answered.

A peephole cover opened, and a man asked, "Who the fuck are you?"

"Is Pablo around?"

"You answer me, maybe I'll answer you."

"Eric," Abe replied. "Old friend of Pablo's."

"Maybe you should come back when we're open and see if Pablo's around," the man said. "Get out of here."

"No."

"What?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Abe said. "The guy lives above the bar, for crying out loud. Go get him."

The door swung open. The doorman was near a foot taller than Abe and far more muscled – not that the muscles mattered much compared to the shotgun he was holding. He grabbed Abe's collar and said, "Hey, asshole, you don't tell me to do! I tell _you _what to do, and I'm telling you to get out of here!"

Abe took a deep breath and said, "I've come from way too far away, and I've got too little time, to get told off by a steroid pumping doorman," Abe replied. "I want to see Pablo."

The doorman let go of Abe only to punch him in the stomach, forcing him to his knees. He then pointed his shotgun at Abe's head and said, "I don't care if you came from fucking Pandora. You're going to go back to wherever you came from, and if I see you around here again, you're going to Hell."

Abe struggled to his feet. When he got his breath back, he said, "Pablo would be very, very upset with you if you shot me."

Once again, Abe was forced to his knees by a body blow. "We'll see about that."

The doorman's finger moved to the trigger, but then a familiar voice cried out, "Ray, stop!"

Ray turned to look behind him and said, "Crazy son of a bitch says he knows you, but I ain't never seen him around here."

"That's because he hasn't been here since before I hired you, you dumb shit," Pablo replied. "Jesus, it's no wonder nobody comes to see me anymore – you've shot them all!"

Ray stepped aside as Pablo approached and said with a laugh, "Nah, boss, I just shoot the annoying ones."

"Again, you must have shot all of them."

Abe got to his feet to look at his old associate, and immediately he was shocked. "What happened to you, man?"

Pablo patted the side of his wheelchair and replied, "Some kid thought he'd make a quick buck by robbing me. He got a lucky shot off after I put two in his face and took out my spine."

"You know that they can fix that these days," Abe said.

Pablo grinned. "Yeah," he said with a slow nod, "but chicks will do _anything_ for a guy in a wheelchair, man."

Abe chuckled and replied, "Well, I'm happy to see that you've kept your perversions throughout all this. Now, can we come inside?"

"We?" Pablo asked. Abe nodded at Norm, who was still slack-jawed by the scene which had unfolded, causing Pablo to frown. "You know the rules, man," he said. "We don't invite people both of us don't know, and I don't know him."

"I know," Abe said with a nod. "But somebody has to pay for the drinks."

"You didn't tell me I was paying for anything," Norm replied.

Pablo looked at Norm again, and then he turned back to Abe. He sighed and wheeled himself back inside. "All right, Ray, let 'em in."

Abe and Norm walked past the doorman, who did not wait a second after they were inside before he slammed the door shut behind them – loudly enough that Abe almost mistook it for the shotgun going off. They followed Pablo into the bar, which was hosting just one other patron. An old man in shabby clothes, snot running down his nose, sat at the bar milking a beer. Pablo nodded at him and said, "Aqualung, my friend, we have guests."

The old man stared at them as they took seats at the other end of the bar and said, "I'm just warming my feet."

Both Norm and Abe nodded as though what he just said made all the sense in the world, but then Abe raised an eyebrow at Pablo. He waved Abe off and said quietly, "Just some homeless guy. He comes in during the day if he has any money, leaves before we open."

"Yeah, well, I'm not so sure I want more ears than necessary listening in on this conversation."

Pablo was quiet for a moment, and then replied, "Yeah, well, you don't know him," he said with a nod towards the homeless man, "and I still don't know him," he finished with a nod towards Norm.

"This is Tom Parker," Abe replied. "He works with me. Good enough?"

"That all depends on what drinks he's buying."

"You got whiskey? Something vintage."

Pablo nodded, and then turned to the homeless man. "Hey, why don't you go put your leg up on one of the couches in the back room?" The old man gave a rattling cough, and then limped away into another room. Once he was out of sight, Pablo put three shot glasses on the counter and quickly filled them with an aged spirit. The three raised their glasses, and Pablo asked, "What should we drink to, _Eric_?"

"In the way-old days, men would drink to their lords," Abe replied. "Let's drink to our lords, whoever they may be."

"Glad to see you're still so full of shit," Pablo said with a laugh, and then knocked back his shot glass. Abe and Norm followed suit. "So, what else can I get for you?"

"I'm going to assume your food still sucks," Abe said. "So, how about a refill and then a couple of names?"

Pablo chuckled and shook his head as he refilled the glasses. "You've been out of town too long, Eric. I'm not in the name game these days."

Abe felt Norm glaring at him, but he paid him no mind. "Bullshit," he said. "You make more money doing that than running this bar."

The barkeep knocked back his second shot and smiled. "Well, I do still have the ears for it," he said. "With the right stimulation, I might be able to recall a couple of things that have passed through here."

Abe did a quick check around the bar, and then asked, "Does it feel hot in here to either of you?"

Pablo sighed and said, "No, Abe, I'm not wired. Now, if you trust your friend so much – much less if you want me to trust him – how about we drop the codes and just get to business?"

He chuckled and took his second shot. "All right, Pablo. I need to know who's in and who's out at RDA, and then I need you to set up a meeting for me on short notice. I'll give you five-thousand for the package."

Pablo shook his head and said, "We'll set the price for the meeting after you tell me who you're looking for, and then it'll be seven-hundred fifty for each name."

Abe snorted. "The meeting? Fine. But I'm not giving you more than five-hundred per name. I know inflation hasn't gone that high since I left town."

"Don't play me for a chump," Pablo said as he poured himself a third shot. "Just because your wife can negotiate other people down to five-hundred doesn't mean I'm going to give you a bargain. You've been gone a long time, so consider this a credit check."

Abe bit his cheeks, and then said, "Six-fifty."

"Seven."

"Fine." Pablo drank his shot. "Let's start with the meeting, though. Who's it with?"

"Soldiers of Gaia."

Pablo began to laugh uproariously. "Have you lost your mind? Keep your money, Abe. I'll hand you over to them, and then I'll just collect the bounty they've got on your head."

"Let me worry about my sanity," Abe replied. "Could you do it?"

He looked at Norm and asked, "Has he been this crazy around you?"

"He's given me a couple of reasons to worry," Norm replied.

Pablo shook his head and said, "I'm not going to guarantee it, Abe, but for three-thousand, I'll give it a shot."

"I want a little more than 'a shot' for three-thousand dollars," Abe replied.

"They're not as strong as they were since you were around," Pablo said, "but they're way, way more aggressive. A kid who calls himself, 'The Monk,' is calling the shots, and he's not the 'turn the other cheek' kind of monk. The FBI tried to infiltrate them a few years ago, but all their agents went missing. They might have even been brainwashed to go over to their side – their families get these weird notes every once in a while – but nobody's really sure." Pablo frowned and added, "Ever since 'The Monk' took over, I haven't really felt comfortable doing business with them. You know what I mean?"

Abe nodded. "If I didn't think they were the ones who could get what I needed, I wouldn't ask you to set this up. I'll give you three-thousand up front, and throw in another five-hundred if you can make a meeting happen tomorrow."

"Fine," Pablo replied. "So if you're still looking to walk away at five-thousand, you've got two names. Choose wisely."

"Who's the new me?" Abe asked. "Whoever it is, I know he can't be all that great. I heard the news this morning."

Pablo laughed again and said, "Shit, I'll give you this one for free. You might even know him. Franklin Ashworth?" Abe shook his head. "He was one of your up-and-coming counterparts over at Alternate Energy Systems when you left. He had a couple of successes afterwards – put out a few fires – and got people talking about him. When RDA had its management coup after you did whatever it was that you did, Savage threw a bunch of money at him to defect."

"Well, like I said, I already figure that he's not great, but is he good?"

"He's capable," Pablo replied with a shrug. "But he's not really inventive, and he doesn't know everybody he needs to know. However, he can be tenacious. If he gets on your trail, man, he'll be like a bloodhound from Hell."

Abe tapped his shot glass to get a refill, and then he said, "Then here's to hoping that you're giving him the benefit of the doubt."


	13. Cat and Mouse, Part II

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N: Work got rough again. I've got the last chapters of this story written, I'm just polishing them up. So, no more two week delays between installments. I'm aiming to have this project finished by the end of the month.

* * *

Tseyo was feeling like a child again. Whereas in earlier instances he was made to feel like a child because the Sky People, whether by design or by their own inability to grasp the concepts they tried to teach him, left him at times feeling ignorant and confused, now he had a boundless depth of curiosity.

The night before, Natalie had given him a sample of her people's capacity for greatness, and he had found it enough to calm his fraying nerves. Today, with his teacher out of the home, Natalie was indulging his desire to know more about the Sky People's arts. He sat cross-legged on the floor while she sat in a chair next to him, the music-playing device in her lap. Last night, she had only given him the sounds; today, though, they were facing the image-making stone and watching performers create the music.

First, Tseyo wanted to hear the song from last night again. Natalie tapped on the music device, and a singer appeared before them. She moved seamlessly from one song to the next, and he would have been content to listen to her for the rest of the day, if not longer; but, in his curiosity, he asked Natalie if Sky People were familiar with drums.

Once again, she tapped away at the device in her lap, and there appeared before him a line of drummers. They tapped out their music with speed and precision that he was unsure of having ever heard inside his home. After that, what appeared to him to be a small clan dedicated to the instrument began a performance; and while he was more than impressed by the sounds they created, he was somewhat off-put by their mechanical choreography. However, and despite what he had been shown so far, Tseyo had come to expect that kind of cold, symmetric art form from the Sky People.

The next song was performed by a single drummer playing furiously on a set of drums. Like with the singer earlier, there were other vocalists and instruments which made up the composition, but the drummer was the heart and soul of this performance. Of all the other artists he had been shown so far, this drummer reminded Tseyo much more of his own kin – organic, wild, and devoted to the music.

The morning passed quickly as Tseyo asked for samples of a wide array of instruments. When they took a break later in the day for a meal, Tseyo asked, "What about your dances?"

Natalie smiled and said, "There are more kinds of dances than there are instruments."

"Can I see some of them?"

She appeared to balk at the request, and then replied, "Yes, we can. But to be honest, this isn't the best place to watch a dance. Music is one thing – you can hear it no matter where you are – but you should be present for a dance."

Tseyo frowned and looked around the room he was in, and he the feeling of confinement which he fought off this morning as he sat enraptured by the music began to return. He frowned, but he understood what she meant. Tseyo nodded and said, "Whatever you can show me, I would like it very much."

When Natalie did demonstrate some dances after they ate, he understood further what she meant. Although the dancing and music were impressive, the way the images kept changing in front of them took a lot away from the experience. Unlike the musicians, who for the most part were stationary, the images could only focus on a few dancers at a time.

She must have picked up on his disappointment, because after the fourth demonstration, she sighed and said, "There _is_ a way for you to see a dance, but I'm worried that you won't like it."

"Can I see it?" He smiled and added, "You'll know if I don't like it."

Natalie seemed to hesitate before she walked to a box in the corner of the room. Opening it, she withdrew a device that looked like the eye protection worn by someone flying on _ikran_ except, like with most everything made by Sky People, it was bulky and metallic. "This will allow you to go to another world – it's like a dream world – where almost anything you want can be found."

Tseyo latched onto a single phrase. "A dream world?" he asked. She nodded. "You mean I will become _uniltìranyu_?"

Natalie furrowed her brow. "What do you mean by, '_uniltìranyu_?'"

"The ones who take our bodies to walk among the people," he replied. "Is that what they use to do it?"

She shook her head. "No, the world that this takes you to isn't real," she explained. "Yes, you would have to take on a new form, but it also wouldn't be real. You can leave it whenever you want."

Tseyo leaned forward to take the device from her hands. He spent a few moments inspecting it before he returned it to her. "Show me," he said.

Natalie went into her room and came out with the same kind of tool Norm had used to teach him. She returned to her seat and, after quickly passing through a series of odd ciphers and images, showed the image of a woman. "This is my _avatar_," she told him. "When I put that device on my head, I can control her in the dream world."

"How?"

"The device takes what I'm thinking and makes the avatar respond."

Tseyo had a moment of clarity. "Ah," he said with a nod. "It is your way of making _tsaheylu_."

She did not respond right away, seemingly lost in thought, but then she nodded and said, "I don't know that it's the same physically, but yes."

He looked at the woman more closely and said, "She looks like you."

Natalie smiled. "I did my best," she replied. "I even got the hair color from pictures of me when I was younger."

The hair on Natalie's avatar was long, straight, and golden; although as the avatar turned about as Natalie moved her fingers over the image, there were moments where Tseyo saw reddish streaks. He looked at Natalie and asked, "Why don't you have hair like that now?"

Her smile faded. "It was the medicine I had to take," she replied. "Then when I became a swimmer, it made sense to keep it cut."

Tseyo wanted to ask how medicine, a healing agent, could make her hair disappear, but he looked again at her sad expression – an almost longing gaze at the avatar – and he decided not to press the point. Instead, he returned to the original topic. "So I would need to be put in there in order to see the dream world?"

"Not _you_ as in your actual body," she replied. "We would create a body for you to control."

Natalie tapped on the image device, and her avatar was replaced by a disturbingly featureless body. It had the shapes of a person – a Sky Person – but it had no eyes, no mouth, and a pure white skin. Before he could react to it, however, she raised the device, turned it towards him, and pointed at a small, black circle at the top. "Look in here," she said.

He leaned forward to look inside, causing her to chuckle and correct herself. "Sorry, I meant, 'Look towards this.'"

Tseyo glared at her, but grinned as he returned to an upright sitting position. "You were doing so well," he said. "I haven't had to correct you most of today."

"Talking with you has brought back a lot of my lessons," she replied. Natalie had him correct his posture a couple of times before she tapped on the device again. "That was good," she said, and then rotated the device so he could see the image again.

Next to the white body was his image. Its clarity took him aback. Tseyo was more accustomed to seeing his reflection in muddy pools after a rainstorm, or in a running river as he bathed; and from a young age, he was told that paying too much attention to one's image was an undesirable trait. Painting oneself outside of any ceremony was wasteful of the plants and seeds which were ground up to create the pigments; and weaving lavish clothes without having any achievements to honor was a sacrilege against the flesh of the animal which had been taken to make such clothes.

Beyond the recollection of those lessons, Tseyo never realized before how gaunt he was.

Shapes began to appear over his face – a mix of circles and triangles, at least to start with – and then those shapes were repeated over the blank face of the body. Soon, its face became gaunt, the sockets of its eyes widened, and the bridge of the nose widened. Once the face had been formed, the avatar's skin darkened to a deep brown, and that caused Tseyo to balk. "Why has it made its skin like that?"

"It compared your skin to our common skin colors," Natalie replied. "We can fix it, though." She brushed her fingers over the body, and a circle with an array of colors, based on a brown palette, appeared. "Which would you like?"

He looked again at the image which Natalie had captured of him, and he wanted to complain that he could not choose to have his own. Though the colors she was offering him might be natural to her, they were all displeasing to him.

Were Natalie not so patient with him, he might have simply abandoned the endeavor and settled for the choppy images which passed for her cultural representations. However, Tseyo instead spent the next while sampling the array of skin tones. He rejected the lighter colors that were closer to Norm and Natalie for being sickly – a characterization he retracted when he saw that it hurt Natalie – and the darker colors characteristic of Norm's mate and Max because he felt it would make him look like a shadow rather than a person.

Tseyo eventually settled on a deep tan pigment. "It makes me look like I'm made out of wood," he said. He raised his brow and asked, "Why do you have these colors for your skin? Eywa painted Na'vi so we could fade into the jungle when we hunt, but you don't seem to have a reason to look like you do."

Natalie chuckled and replied, "Our skin color is because of the sun. It varies depending on where our ancestors lived." He waited for a deeper explanation, but she sighed and added, "I don't think I have the right words to explain it further."

He smiled. "A lot of your world is not described in our words." Tseyo nodded at the person they had created and asked, "Are we done?"

"Only if you want to be bald like I am," she replied with a grin. "But I think I already know what kind of hair you'll want." With far more speed than he had shown in selecting his skin, Natalie found for his avatar a long, black braid. Tseyo only nodded.

"Do you always have to go through this much to see dances?" he asked.

"No," she replied. "Normally we would just go outside, but I don't think Norm and my father would approve of that."

Tseyo sighed. "I hope they do something soon," he replied. "Staying down here for long would be too hard, I think."

"Even with me keeping you company?" she asked, her eyebrows slightly raised.

He smiled and replied, "I like your company, Natalie, but I didn't come here to be trapped." He rubbed his cheeks and added, "At least I don't have to wear that mask."

"I'm glad for that, too," she said. "You look much better without it on."

"I hope so," he replied, his smile becoming more of a grin. He looked again at the avatar. "So that's what I'll look like in the dream world?" She nodded. His grin widened and he asked, "Is that attractive to you?"

Natalie's skin went from pale to a bright red. However, unlike when he lured her into talking about tails, she retorted, "Isn't vanity offensive to you, Tseyo?"

He laughed and then said, "You're very right." Tseyo took a breath and then asked, "Are we ready, _now_?"

Natalie was about to say something, but she was interrupted by the sounds of an argument coming the top of the stairs. Tseyo discerned the voices of his teacher and T'ngyute as they came down the stairs, arguing with each other as they turned the corner. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Natalie wipe away the person they had spent much of the day creating. She looked at him and said quietly, "We'll finish this later."

Her posture and tone made it seem as though they had been doing something illicit, although he was not sure what that could have been. Tseyo only nodded in response.

Norm and T'ngyute were each holding several bags, and in a hurried conversation in their native language, T'ngyute sent Natalie away. While T'ngyute laid the bags' contents out on the floor, Tseyo looked to Norm and asked, "Is something wrong?"

"Abe wants to do something foolish," Norm replied. "And it's going to put you at risk."

"Aren't I – all of us – already at risk?"

Norm sighed and said, "Yes, but this is unnecessary. He wants to talk to you about it, but I don't think he's going to give you a choice in it."

"We'll see if it's really unnecessary."

Norm and T'ngyute had a side conversation, and then T'ngyute stood before him and spoke. Tseyo looked to Norm for a translation. "You remember why you're here, right?"

He looked back to T'ngyute and replied, "I'm here to fight for the people, and to tell your people to leave our home in peace."

"You're also here because people may not believe the sincerity of our actions if it were just me and Norm alone," he replied. T'ngyute grinned and said something else, which caused another small argument between him and Norm, but eventually he translated, crudely, "People here often think that I don't do the things I do for the reasons I say I do them."

If that was meant to keep Tseyo from becoming confused, it did not help. He furrowed his brow and asked, "Do you?"

T'ngyute shrugged and replied, "Sometimes."

Tseyo shook his head, sighed, and asked, "So what is it that you want to do – or say that you want to do – that has my teacher upset?"

"I'm trying to have the three of us meet with other people who can help us defeat the ones who are preparing to attack your home."

"Why does this upset you?" he asked Norm.

"Because the people he wants us to meet are crazy."

Tseyo grinned and replied, "I think you're all crazy anyway."

Norm tried, and failed, to suppress a laugh, and then he shook his head. "Maybe, but these people are dangerous, too. We don't know what they'll do, or even if they'll help us."

T'ngyute appeared to grow impatient with their side conversation, and so forced himself back in. "I hope this meeting will take place tomorrow, but it may be longer away. If it is, we won't be able to go through with our plan for a much longer time."

"How much longer?"

"Many, many days."

Tseyo thought about what that meant, and he sighed. "I would have to stay down here for many more days?" T'ngyute nodded. "How long am I supposed to be here, anyway?"

"Until we're ready."

"But if we meet with these people tomorrow, we'll be ready sooner?"

"Maybe."

Tseyo sighed again. He had only been in this room for two days, but the confinement was wearing on him. The idea that he would have to be kept hidden for what could be an indefinite amount of time, given T'ngyute's vague responses, was less than appealing. However, he did not yet have any reason to believe that his having been brought to this place was one of T'ngyute's cases of saying one thing and doing another – and if that were the case, what recourse would he have?

"Why are these people so important?" he asked.

"They've been enemies of the people we're fighting for a very long time," T'ngyute replied. "If they come to our side, when others see what we've done, they will be more likely to support us."

"I thought that because _you_ were a leader among the people we're fighting, that would be enough to convince others," Tseyo said. "When _olo'eyktan_ came to us as _Toruk Makto_, we forgave him of his transgressions."

"My people, and these people, aren't so forgiving."

* * *

His personal servants had just finished cleaning up the last of the lunch when the AMIS chief entered his penthouse. "How was your lunch with the judge, sir?" Franklin asked.

"Not as productive as I hoped," Savage replied. "There isn't a lot he can do to put the bureaucrats in line, not immediately anyway. I hope your day was more productive."

"It was, Mister Chairman," he replied. "The New York regional headquarters was able to identify an asset without a lot of ties to the local community. We put him on the first high-speed out of New York, so he'll be in place here this evening."

"Who is he?"

"I think it would be better to keep his details known to as few people as possible," Franklin said. Before Savage could pull rank and demand more, Franklin added, "He's helped us on some high profile assignments along the East Coast and in Europe, all of them resolved satisfactorily."

He did a quick run through of some of the recent cases RDA had to combat in those areas – a few attempted extortions, threatened worker strikes, and government investigations. If the asset Franklin was bringing in had been involved in quashing those, he was satisfied to not know anything more.

"Have any of your assets around here raised flags on Abe, yet?" he asked instead.

Franklin shook his head. "We've seen some chatter about the crash, but nothing that indicates they know anything more than we do."

Savage nodded. He knew the media blackout was not going to hold up forever. There were too many pieces of the story floating around that they did not have control over. "When your man finds Abe, what are his orders?"

"Track him, find out whom he might have made contact with already, and then hand the information over to us so we can have Abe and his conspirators put in custody – which is what we expected to do anyway, but without all this trouble."

He took a deep breath. "Yeah, originally we were going to throw Abe to the courts, but the problem with these kinds of trials is that people pay attention." He paused and added, "We're trying to prevent Abe from getting a platform, not give him one."

Franklin hesitated before he responded. "You want him to disappear."

Savage shrugged. "He wanted people to believe he died in that shuttle crash, right? Well, maybe he did, and we're just chasing a ghost."

"We're also assuming that he's, at the least, made contact with his family by know."

"His wife's old and has her own job consulting for disreputable people, and his kid has cancer. This doesn't seem hard to me."

"The devil's in the details, sir," Franklin replied.

"The details are your job."

"Sir, we also have to identify just what it is that Abe is planning to come at us with," he said. "If he were to 'disappear' with that information, others may find it on their own. And if it was powerful enough to make Abe turn…"

"There may be nothing there that we don't already know," Savage interrupted. "Abe's not unlike everybody else out there looking for a chance to get ahead. He's just better at spotting opportunities. Parker's stupidity gave him an opportunity, and now he wants to cash in."

Franklin shook his head and replied, "If he just wanted to extort us, why would he have taken the risk of sabotaging our Pandora operations?"

"Maybe so he could look like the good guy to the public if we were – when we would – call him on his bluff," Savage said with a curled lip. "Who cares? The point is that he's presented us with a threat, and we need to find a long-term solution."

"I agree, sir, but…"

"No," Savage interrupted again. "All I need from you is, 'I agree.' It's like the guy said, 'Yours is not to reason why, yours is to get this done.'"

"And then the light brigade was slaughtered."

"Exactly," Savage said, not noticing the slight rise of Franklin's brow. "They got the job done, and that's what I need you to do."

Franklin paused, and then he replied, "The asset should be here this evening. I'll brief him, and we'll get a plan put in place. Do you want me to brief you tonight?"

"No," he replied. "Again, the details are your job."

"Understood."

Once Franklin left the penthouse, Savage settled into his study and half-heartedly parsed through the last report from Pandora. It was more of the same: delays, insufficient supplies, and fighting off incursions.

Savage sighed. It had been almost twenty years since Parker's message that the mining operation had collapsed. Those first years had gone by with a great deal of uncertainty: How great was the catastrophe, and how long would it take for RDA to recover? Then there was the uncertainty about Abe's recovery mission: Would it be enough to pull Pandora back from the brink?

Back then, Savage had not been convinced that sending an armada to subdue the entirety of the alien populace, consequences be damned, was the proper course of action. However, now that the armada was on its way to do just that, long after the first opportunity had presented itself, Savage could not help but feel angry at himself for not acting more decisively at the onset of the crisis.

He was acting decisively, now. "Consequences be damned," he said to himself. "We're going to solve these problems. We're getting back on top."

* * *

Abe was helping Krysta in the kitchen make the final dinner preparations when the guardhouse at the gated community's entrance called the house. Krysta answered while Abe and the others made sure they were out of sight of the video phone. On its own, the contract-security uniform that the guard wore would not have been intimidating; but that the guard had an exopack mask on did make him appear to be a much greater force to reckon with than he might be otherwise.

"There's a Doctor Tom Walsh at the gate to see you, Ma'am," he said, his voice garbled by the combination of the exopack's and video phone's microphones.

"Yes, I'm expecting him," Krysta replied. "I called ahead to you earlier."

"New protocol, Ma'am," the guard replied. "We have to call and check."

"Fair enough. Send him up." The call ended, and the others came out of their hiding places. Krysta turned to him and, grinning, said, "I never thought I'd see the day that you'd be hiding from a rent-a-cop."

"Even a rent-a-cop might get suspicious about how a single mother could be hosting a dinner party when nobody else has called on the house," Abe replied. He nodded towards the basement door and added, "I'm also sure a ten-foot alien might tip him off."

Shortly after he briefed Tseyo about the meeting he had requested, Tseyo began to complain of dizziness. Norm, Max, and Matthew were quick to respond, and they were keeping him under observation.

Krysta shook her head. "You're going to give Tom a heart attack."

Abe snorted and said, "I think he'll be fine. Truth be told, I'm surprised he's still alive." She gave him a cross look, so he added, "What? I mean it as a compliment. He was seventy-one when I left, so he's way past expectancy now."

"Genetic therapy helps," she replied, to which Abe could only shrug.

Not a few minutes later, Abe heard a car pull up outside, followed soon after by a knock on the front door. Although he was more than confident it was Tom at the door, Abe still felt compelled to stay concealed in the case that a double-cross was in the works.

Vertex barked from upstairs, while Krysta went to answer. "Thank you for coming by on short notice," she said as she hugged him.

"I'd never turn down your invitation," Tom replied, giving her a kiss on her cheek. He closed the door behind him and promptly asked, "All right, where is he?"

Abe stepped around from behind the wall, and he was immediately struck by the correctness of Krysta's earlier comment. Tom had been keeping up with his genetic therapy, as he looked barely aged from when Abe had last seen him. Tom must have held the same impression of him, because he said, "Not that I should be surprised, Abe, but you're still as ugly as when you left."

"Pandora isn't what you would call a beauty salon," he replied, and then stepped forward to embrace him. "It's good to see you again."

"Likewise," Tom said with a pat on his back. "You made a hell of an entrance, though. I didn't think setting a wildfire was your style."

"These are special circumstances," he replied with a grin.

"And I'm sure the chairman is working to make your circumstances particularly special if he ever gets a hold of you," Tom said. "He was expecting you to come home quietly with an armed escort."

"That's his fault," Abe said as they walked into the dining room and sat at the table. "How is the chairman?"

"Agitated, I assume also because of you. Whoever that woman is you have reading from a script back on Pandora is driving him up a wall."

Abe kept his composure as he felt an uncommon nervousness take hold. "Is the script that obvious?"

"No," Tom replied. "The chairman's buying it, but she almost blew it a couple of years back. I got her in a one-on-one session and straightened her out." He chuckled and added, "She almost didn't cooperate – she really hates you."

"I won't be signing a recommendation letter for her, either."

Natalie emerged from the basement and immediately went to Tom. "Hey, Doctor Walsh," she said as she gave him a hug. "How are you?"

"I'm good," he replied with a smile. Then his tone became more fatherly, "How're you doing?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I've still got everything I need." She looked over at Abe and added, "Although all of the recent 'changes' have been a bit more than I expected."

Tom chuckled and said, "I don't know how much you remember of your father from when you were a kid, but I guess you were always destined to see him in action."

She nodded, her eyes still fixed with his. "I'm learning a lot." Although her tone was innocent enough, Abe tried to read her intentions from her eyes. Unfortunately for him, she had inherited her parents' ability to keep the human body's usual tells in check, exuding seriousness and candor at all times, even if her thoughts and words were detached from each other.

"How's Tseyo?" Abe asked.

"Doctors Spellman, Cook, and Patel think he's okay," she replied. "He's had his mask on for the last few hours, so he's been getting fresh air."

"If you could let them know that Tom's here, I'd appreciate it." Natalie nodded and headed back to the basement.

"Who's this, now?" Tom asked.

"You'll see in a second," he replied casually. "So, the chairman's agitated. How'd you survive the purge of all things reminiscent of me?"

"Purged?" Tom said with a snort. "Hell, Abe, I got my benefits package expanded. Like Pandorium, 'smartest man in the world' is a finite resource," Tom said. "He sure as hell doesn't want me running somebody else's R-and-D program."

"Maybe he's just biding his time until your clone comes online," Abe said with a grin.

"There are only seven labs in the world with the capacity to sustain human cloning, and RDA – or, more precisely, I – run four of them," he replied. "Besides, for all of our efforts, we can't reliably clone intelligence. It's the damnedest thing."

Abe sighed and said, "I was joking, Tom."

"Then your sense of humor hasn't improved much."

Abe heard the group coming up from the basement. He grinned again and said, "Well, see if you find this funny."

When Tseyo, wearing his exopack, emerged from behind the others, Tom's eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and he almost fell out of his seat as he hurried to his feet. "No!"

Abe stayed in his chair and replied, "Oh, very much, 'Yes,' Doctor."

As though every year he had tried to hide with genetic therapy had been wiped away, Tom's walk over to Tseyo was shaky at best – even Natalie was compelled to help him across the living room. Tom turned and said, "This isn't your infiltrator, is it?"

Abe shook his head. "Devon didn't make it. Tseyo's an original, Tom."

"My God, so it is," Tom replied as he looked over Tseyo, much to the Na'vi's confusion.

It was not until the group was seated for the spaghetti dinner – with Tom taking the place of the guest of honor, allowing Amy to break protocol and sit to Norm's left – that Tom was able to form more complete sentences.

"You know, I was there with Cordell when the first avatars became viable. We burned through so many samples, almost bankrupted the whole department, just trying to get _one_." He laughed and said, "And you just went and kidnapped one."

"He volunteered, actually, if you can believe it."

Tom nodded. "I can. But what happened to your avatar? You said he didn't make it. Did the consciousness transfer not work? We've improved it considerably since ten years ago."

"It worked, but the body didn't survive," Abe said, hoping that Tom would pick up on his waxing over of the details and drop the subject.

He did not. "Didn't survive how?"

"He died." Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Norm grinning. Tseyo appeared blissfully ignorant of the conversation while he slurped his pre-made dinner through the straw on his mask.

"Did the Na'vi find him out?"

"Tom…"

"Find who out?" Natalie asked. Before Abe could respond, she put her tableware on her plate and said, "You know, I've been tip-toeing around all of this long enough. I could hear you two," indicating her mother and Tom, "when I was in the hospital, and I'm smart enough to know that you two," indicating himself and Norm, "are trying to protect me from something. I'm tired of _literally_ being the only person at the table to not know what happened on Pandora."

Tom took a deep breath, and then a long sip of his wine. Abe heard him mutter, "It's Sarah and Michael all over again."

Abe also took a deep breath before he replied, "A lot has happened on Pandora, and not all of it was good."

"I'm not naïve, Daddy," she said. "But what did _you_ do?"

"I tried to make things better up there, but people ended up getting hurt instead. Now really isn't the time…"

"When is it going to be the time?" she interrupted. "I'm not going to let one 'later' bleed into another until you guys hope I'll forget." Natalie looked at Tseyo and said, "Maybe I'll just ask him directly."

"No," Norm and Abe said at the same time, to their and everyone else's surprise. "That's not a good idea," Abe added.

"So then you should tell me why, _Daddy_."

Abe looked around the table. Although he was certain that his teammates, who were eating while attempting to pretend that the conversation was not happening, would be more than willing to oblige his request to keep the details of the Pandora operation a secret, he knew there were no such assurances from Norm and his people. He found himself surprised that Tseyo had not yet volunteered the information to Natalie, but Abe was sure there was no way to keep him from doing so.

He sighed and said, "We had an avatar on our team whose job it was to monitor Tseyo's clan to ensure that the measures we were taking to keep the peace were working, or to alert us to problems…"

"Abe?" Norm interrupted. "You're going to lie to your own daughter?"

"Believe what you will, Norm, but that's not a lie," Abe snapped back. "Your friend shut down the first program, and I needed to know if he was going to shut it down again."

"Of course he was," Norm replied. "He's their leader, and they weren't going to stand to have you back and doing the same things as before. You didn't want to monitor him, you wanted him out of the picture."

"Then I'd have just bombed him!" Abe said. "I'd have come in, killed your people off, taken the remaining military hardware, and killed them all – which, right now, is what we're trying to stop, in case you've forgotten."

"Wait," Natalie interrupted. "Okay, I know you two don't like each other, but you're losing me. What about the avatar?"

Abe looked towards Dawn and said, "Somehow he got the impression that it would help his cover if he mated with one of the Na'vi." He sighed and looked at Tseyo. "His sister, in fact."

"With all due respect, Boss, I'm getting tired of being the scapegoat for the failure of the operation," Dawn replied. "If he had followed your orders, like a good soldier, my suggestion wouldn't have mattered."

"You mean your psych screening didn't root out a fetishist?" Tom asked with his lip curled. "We practically built the evaluation program around disqualifying _those_ people."

Abe waved him off and said, "Regardless, it happened."

Tseyo looked across the table and asked Norm a question, which Abe assumed was to inquire about the increasingly hostile conversation. At first, it appeared as though Norm tried to deflect his curiosity; but when that seemed to fail, he provided what must have been a quick primer, for Tseyo crossed his arms and turned to stare at Abe.

When their side exchange was over, Natalie said, "So your spy mated with one of the Na'vi, and then what?"

"I don't know the details," he said. "Maybe it was bad pillow talk, but she found out who he was, and he overreacted."

"He murdered her," Norm said flatly.

Natalie's eyes went wide. "What?"

Abe threw out his defense. "I want to say again what Dawn said, that if he followed my orders, it wouldn't have happened."

"And like you said," Norm interjected, "'Regardless, it happened.'"

"I hope the reason why he's dead is because you killed him for it," Natalie said.

Abe nodded at Tseyo and said, "No, he did." He paused to consider whether or not he should continue on with details, but he settled for saying, "From there, things went downhill."

"SecOps showed up and attacked their home," Norm said.

"Because of Parker!" Abe replied. "Again, if people had just done what I told them, we wouldn't be here right now."

"No, we wouldn't," Natalie said. "You'd still be up there exploiting their home and doing who knows what else – oh, sorry, you _do_ know what else."

"I thought you said you weren't naïve," Abe retorted. "You've known about the mining, just like everybody else on this planet, since you were young."

"And like everybody else, I thought you were being honest when the company – when you – said you were taking care of the Na'vi, that you didn't want to repeat the same mistakes that happened here."

"I was trying to take care of the Na'vi," he said. "I tried to do everything to make sure that the same mistakes that Parker made wouldn't be repeated." He sighed in exasperation and looked across the table. "Back me up here, Tom."

Tom nodded and said, "Natalie, I worked closely with your father when he developed the plan to go back to Pandora. He was not setting out to hurt the Na'vi. But I share with your father one very simple rule: We have to do whatever we can to ensure our own survival. Humanity has to come first."

"And that worked out so well for Earth, didn't it? Why wouldn't it work out for Pandora?" Natalie placed her napkin on the table and stood. "Excuse me." Abe began to stand, but as she walked towards the stairs, she turned around and said, "You know, it's not like I've lived in a bubble of blissful ignorance. I've read the stuff people say about RDA on the Internet, but I figured they were all whackjobs who just had an axe to grind. I didn't think the people I loved could actually do the things they talked about."

"Those people aren't always telling the truth," he said. "If you want to know…"

"I don't," she said. "You were right. It wasn't a good idea to ask about what happened up there."

Abe wanted to go after her as she retreated downstairs, but he also had a good sense that anything he might try to say would be a waste of time. It also struck him that she was being immature in her response to the information, and then he had his own, terrible revelation: This was a part of her life he had missed.

When Natalie was young, he and Krysta would, when she was healthy, often bounce around scenarios about how they would respond as parents when she became an obstinate, emotional teenager. They imagined her reaction of being kept in the house on curfew, or punished for unseemly behavior, and the shouts of, "I hate you!"

Those years had come and gone while he had been a distant stranger to her, left to Krysta to manage on top of everything else. Natalie had thrown down the gauntlet that, until now, had only been a scenario to him, and far from being over an issue of little consequence, was about a fundamental part of who he was.

He sat back down, defeated. That's when he noticed Tseyo's attention had remained on him throughout the exchange. Abe took a deep breath and said, "You think she hates me? Why don't you go tell her how you had me tied to a post for an execution over something I didn't do? Tell her about the guy's teeth you're wearing on your arm. I bet she'll still be your friend after that."

Tseyo's expression seemed little changed, and Norm said, "You know he doesn't speak English, Abe."

"So translate it," he replied, his eyes still locked with Tseyo's. When Norm hesitated, he turned and yelled, "Translate it!"

Norm did, and Tseyo had a lengthy response. "He wants to know when you're going to take responsibility for what happened," Norm translated. "He says you're too quick to push responsibility onto other people, but you still want to be a leader. He says he can't trust someone who does that, and you shouldn't be surprised that your own daughter won't trust you, either."

Abe was ready to respond, when the cell phone in his pocket began to ring. Among the errands he and Norm made while they were in the city, he purchased a number of pre-paid cell phones. The call he was receiving was an auto-forward from an Internet routing service that he set up for another pre-paid phone – and that phone was taped to the undercarriage of a garbage truck that had been parked outside a diner when he and Norm left the pedestrian-only zone.

If somebody were to trace the call to get Abe's location, they would be following some hapless waste management employees.

As the phone was new, he knew there was only one person who had its number. "Pablo?"

"Eric," Pablo responded. "Listen, that girl at the bar? She thinks you're crazy, but she said she's willing to give you a shot. She's working tomorrow morning at the Java House in Modesto, six to two. You need directions?"

"Yeah."

"From where you are, just take Highway 132 in. The place is on the corner of L and Thirteenth."

"Thanks, man, I owe you."

"Yeah, actually, you do." Pablo hung up.

Despite his hope that the call would provide a convenient, if not messy, break from the preceding events, after Abe returned the phone to his pocket, he saw that he was still very much the focus of the others' attention. He sighed and said, "We're going to have to pick this back up later."

"Who was that?" Krysta asked with a mix of curiosity and irritation. "Who could possibly be calling you?"

"We got our meeting," Abe replied flatly. He took a long look towards the basement stairs, then to Tseyo, and then finally to Tom. "I need to talk to you before you go."


	14. Cat and Mouse, Part III

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – My apologies, guys. I moved to a new place; and on top of all the fun that entails, it took forever to get the Internet/cable hooked up.

* * *

"Do you know why I like taking your contracts?" she asked.

"Why?"

"You put me up in the nicest hotels." Jude pulled back the curtains to look out over the bay. The North Tower of the long-ago collapsed Golden Gate Bridge stood illuminated in the night, ostensibly a monument to the hundreds of thousands who died in the earthquakes. In truth, as they planned the new San Francisco, engineers and city planners found that it was cheaper to build a new bridge the west of the original than to reconstruct it.

"It was a stipulation of your contract," Franklin replied, not apparently the least bit amused by her quip. "Full suite, nothing below four diamonds," he added. "Your reputation from New York was good enough to have us accommodate the demand, but we're expecting to get full value on the contract."

"You will," she replied flatly as she let the curtain fall back into place. Jude walked to her bags, which she had left on the bed, and began to assemble her equipment bedside. "I need a more thorough briefing first."

"To be honest, I'm not convinced you're the person I hired," he replied. "I spoke with a man…"

"Named Jude," she interrupted. "That was my avatar. We went over this at the train station."

"But now I want proof."

She set aside the rest of her equipment and withdrew her tablet from its case. After taking time to reset the machine's security protocols to account for the hotel's defenseless wireless network, she pulled up her avatar program. Jude handed him the tablet and asked, "Does he look familiar?"

Franklin frowned and handed the tablet back to her. "Fair enough." He took a camera from his pocket and withdrew the media storage device.

Jude took the chip from him and inserted it in one of her tablet's ports. At first, images of butterflies appeared on her screen – she asked herself if she had ever seen a butterfly outside of a zoo – but her background security program quickly identified the embedded data. Another program activated automatically to reconstruct the information into her briefing.

She scanned through the pages of information, and she was not impressed. "There's a lot of biographical information here," she said, "but you aren't telling me anything about what you're after."

"The target was in charge of restarting our Pandora operations. However, and for whatever reason, he sabotaged them. We need to know why."

"Do you _need_ to know, or do you want it to go away?" she asked. "Because, Mister Ashworth, any two-bit, Scientologist-hired investigator could probably figure out why. People don't bring me in on cases where they don't have a handle on the problem, but only if they're having problems packing it up."

"The problem is that one of our former, high-performing, senior executives has had a crisis of loyalty," he replied. "Yes, we need him to go away, but we also need to figure out what made him go rogue on us – and then we need _that_ to go away."

"Then I suggest you conduct an internal investigation. It will be cheaper for you."

Franklin stepped towards her and said, "This suite aside, we paid you a very substantial advance for this contract. If you're going to back out, I…"

"I'm not backing out," she interrupted. "I'm telling you that I've taken enough RDA contracts to have a pretty good idea how one of your people could have had a crisis of conscience. He was your predecessor, right?"

"Correct."

"Then for starters, I'd suggest the possibility that he got tired of us 'contractors.'" Jude held a hand up before he could respond. "I'm going to help you take care of your problem, but frankly, Franklin, I don't think you want a person like me digging deep into RDA's affairs to find out what created this problem in the first place."

"We have a confidentiality agreement."

"I'm sure you did with the target, too," she said with a grin. "But if one person stared into the abyss and didn't like what he saw, what makes you think that another person wouldn't react the same way?"

"It's a good thing you came with a solid recommendation and track record," Franklin replied, "because you're not doing a lot to inspire me with confidence right now."

She just shrugged. "So what kind of message are you looking to send with this package?"

"None," he replied. "Find him, identify any loose ends, and then bury the package. The sooner you can do this, the better."

Jude shook her head and said, "He arrived two days ago, and you're only just briefing me. I can't give you that time back. I'm going to do what needs to get done, but don't expect me to rush through it. Keep in mind that if I mess up, it could come back to you."

Franklin took a breath before he said, "See that it doesn't," and then made a quick exit from the suite.

Within thirty minutes, Jude had her equipment operational. Shortly afterwards, Jude launched an array of programs to scan for information on her target and his known contacts. By the time she turned in for the night, she had her plan of action underway.

* * *

"You know you really should go talk to Natalie," Tom said, sitting alone with Abe at the long-since cleared dinner table. "She may not like to hear what you have to say, but she ought to hear it anyway."

Abe shook his head and said, "Krysta and I didn't want her to find out what it was that we did for a living until we were ready to put it behind us. We certainly didn't ever think it would come out like this."

"Careful, Abe," Tom replied with a grin. "You sound like you're having regrets."

Abe chuckled. "I don't know that I'd call them regrets. Perspective, maybe, but I couldn't tell you that I'd do anything differently."

"You'd still go to Pandora?"

"_That_ I regret," Abe said, "but not because of what went on there." Tom nodded, likely aware of what he was going to say next. Abe continued anyway, "I missed everything. Ever since she was a little girl, from that first hospital stay, I told her that I would be there when she needed me. Then I was gone for so long that I've just become some guy, and I wasn't there for her."

Tom scoffed. "C'mon, Abe, don't go there. She's mad at you now, but you're still her father. It won't last forever."

Abe raised an eyebrow and asked, "Have you spoken with your son lately?"

"Hell no!" he replied with a laugh. "But he's a money-grubbing, worthless sack who doesn't know how to stand on his own legs." Tom shook his head and continued, "I gave him every possible opportunity to be a _man_, and he squandered it all. Natalie, on the other hand, is a bright, determined young woman with a future. You should be proud of her."

"I am," Abe said. "I just wish I had been around to see it happen."

"Well, who knows, Abe," Tom said with a sigh. "It's just as likely that your presence might have screwed her up." Abe went wide-eyed and slack-jawed, to which Tom just shrugged and said, "It's possible. We'll never know what did or didn't happen in the alternate universe of, 'What if?'"

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Abe laughed, shook his head, and said, "Christ, Tom, if that's your idea of a silver lining, I'd rather just have the hurricane."

"Just as soon as you stop moping, I'll stop introducing you to worst-case scenarios." Tom sighed and continued, "Speaking of worst-case scenarios, Abe, this plan you've come up with…"

"I know it's crazy," Abe interrupted. "I've had no shortage of people tell me that."

"At least hear it from one of the ten smartest men on Earth," Tom said. "You're crazy."

"I didn't sabotage the Pandora operation," Abe replied. "They were going to hang me out for Parker's stupidity. You should know me better than to think I'd take that lying down."

"Maybe you didn't set out to be a saboteur, but the fact is that things went wrong – again – and you were in charge." Tom took a breath and said, "Put yourself back in your AMIS shoes, and conduct an after action review of your operation. What would you identify as the points of failure?"

Abe grinned and asked, "Have you opened a wormhole to the alternate universe of, 'What if?'"

"No," Tom replied. "But I'll cut to the chase. Right now you are, at best, a fugitive with a couple of felony charges. You're too high profile to be made to disappear, but RDA could arrange for an expeditious trial."

"At which point I'll die in prison."

Tom continued without acknowledging his comment. "If your plan is successful – _successful_, Abe – you might, at best, be the man responsible for the collapse of civilized society. You're going to lay bare the greatest corporate conspiracy in the history of mankind – in which senior members of the governments of the civilized world were complicit, I'll add – and then follow that up with an intensified energy crisis. At worst, and certainly in the event of failure, you'll be a terrorist." Tom sighed and said, "In all cases, you're asking your family to assume a lot of risks that are, in my opinion, unfair to ask of them."

"So what should I do, Tom? Walk into a police station, turn myself in for something or another, and then hope for the best?"

"You should do what you're best at doing and _leverage_ your position to your advantage, rather than go for the climactic showdown," Tom replied. "You still have time to do it."

Abe shook his head. "If the chairman had left Krysta and Natalie alone, I probably would. Unfortunately for him, that's now part of the history of our alternate universe."

"Not just for him, Abe. You're playing with more people's lives than either of us could account for – on two worlds, no less."

Abe nodded and asked, "Do you want to play along?"

"No," he replied flatly. "I have no interest in this business. This is your job, not mine."

"Except it crosses over with your job," Abe said. "This is about your life's work, Tom. The entirety of your pursuits has been to make Earth a better place to live, but instead you've had your work usurped as a plaything for the man who already has everything."

"But he still lets me work," Tom replied. "Where everybody else would have put me out to pasture, he's kept me in business. I still get published."

"What's the point of getting published if all of your discoveries get locked up as corporate, intellectual property for nobody else to act on?"

"Versus being a has-been academic?" Tom asked with a snort. "By the way, the research that Doctor Patel has with him: If he really thinks RDA will sit by while he distributes it _en masse_ to all corners of academia…"

"He does really think it, because it's going to happen," Abe replied, interrupting him. "On that particular point, I'm shoulder-to-shoulder with him and Norm. Too many people have been sacrificed to obtain that knowledge for it to get locked up in RDA's archives."

Tom shook his head. "They're not going to know what to do with it. That information is just as likely to be wasted by the masses as it would be by RDA."

"We'll take our chances."

He chuckled and said, "I have no doubt about that. You've taken plenty of chances already."

"And relative to those risks, I'm asking you to take a fairly minor one. Besides, once this all goes down – and it will – I doubt the chairman will be lenient on you a second time."

"Respectfully, Abe, I'm more important to RDA than you ever were," Tom replied flatly. "If I go, RDA's research program will seize up. The chairman will more than likely force me to sell some of my stake in the company, and then he'll let me go on doing what I'm doing now."

Abe sighed. "You're really not going to help me, are you?"

Tom shook his head. "I won't stand in your way, but I can't in good conscience participate, either."

"All right," Abe replied with a slow nod. "Well, if you won't help me, are you still willing to be there for Krysta and Natalie?"

"Of course."

Abe reached into his pocket and withdrew a portable storage device. "This contains all of my emergency accounts and contacts. I've checked on them since coming home, and they're still active. If anything goes wrong, move the money, activate my contacts, and get my family to safety." He handed Tom the drive and added, "Download the information and destroy the chip as soon as possible."

Tom reluctantly took the device and, storing it away, said, "You still have time to make sure it doesn't come to that, Abe." He pleaded, "Be sensible about this."

"I owe my family security, and they aren't going to have that as long as Savage is able to punish them for an offense I didn't commit." He took a breath and said, "The sensible thing, Doctor, is to knock the bastard back on his ass."

* * *

Natalie had lost track of the time, had tried several times to wash the sting of her tears from her eyes, when someone tried to turn the locked knob on her door. "Go away, please," she said from her bed, her face half buried in her pillow. "Just let me sleep it off."

"_Nä-tey-lee_?" Tseyo said from the other side of the door. "May I speak with you?"

She hesitated, but then gathered herself together and unlocked her door. When she opened it, Tseyo was sitting in front of her with a slight smile. He had taken off his mask. "My father wouldn't come down?"

His smile faded. "He should have," Tseyo replied. "But he started talking with the older one."

Natalie just shook her head. Doctor Walsh had practically been a surrogate father to her in her dad's absence, but she was even looking at him in a different light, now. What research projects had he ordered at the Na'vi's expense? Was he being honest about her father, or just protecting the extent of his own involvement?

Tseyo asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she replied with a sniffle. "It was just a lot to learn." She took a deep breath and added, "I'm sorry about your sister. I would never have thought my father could be involved in something like that."

He looked down and nodded slowly. "It was very painful for me to lose her," he said. Then he took a deep breath and continued, "However, now she is one with Eywa, and part of the energy which sustains life. That makes it hard to stay sad." He took another breath and looked up at her. "There is more, though, that you should know."

She nodded, quietly asking him to continue.

"I was very angry because of her death – all the people were. When we knew it was the one your father had sent who was responsible, we wanted all of them to be brought to account for the crime." He paused, turned, and crawled to his hammock. He took a long knife from a sheath that had been hanging from the rope near one of the anchor points, and then came back to the door. He held it flat in his open palms and said, "I used this knife to kill the one who killed Mehi'a." He looked in her eyes and added, "I wanted to use it to kill your father, too."

Natalie looked at the blade, and immediately had an image of it impaled in her father's chest. She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to get rid of the sight. She was not completely successful, but she opened her eyes to look back at Tseyo. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Your father said I should, and I think he's right." He let out a short laugh and said, "I don't know how you Sky People live with each other, because it seems to me that you hide so much from your friends. My people don't – good or bad, we don't hide from each other."

Rather than be impressed, she decided to test the extent of his honesty. "Do you still want to kill my father?"

He shook his head. "I'm not angry anymore. I don't like him, but the kind of anger I felt is destructive. You cannot balance your energy with it."

"Are you going to kill other people?"

Tseyo paused for a moment, and then replied, "I don't want to, but I came here to protect my people from more harm. I'm ready to do what I need to do to keep that promise to them."

"Those people are going to be other people's brothers," she replied. "Or children's fathers."

"I know," he said quietly. "I hope I don't have to hurt them, but…"

"…If you have to," she finished for him. He nodded. "Norm said you came here to be a witness, not to be a fighter."

"I can't tell my people's story if I let your people kill me, can I?"

Natalie sighed and shook her head. "This is all so crazy." She felt the same emotions from earlier begin to dominate her, and she did her best to fight them back. "Somehow, I knew that there was more going on in your world than we were being told here, but I wouldn't let myself believe it was so bad."

"Sometimes it's easier to think about what's going to happen than about what's happened," he replied. "I could either keep thinking about how sad and angry I was when Mehi'a was taken away, or I can think about how happy the people will be when I can tell them that our home is safe again." He returned the sword to its cover, and then came back to her. "I think the future is better."

Natalie nodded. "I think the same thing here a lot. I know you've seen how bad our world has become, and there are a lot of people who are too focused on what's happened. However, I like to think about what I could do to help it, how I can help bring it back to life." She allowed herself a few moments to get lost in those thoughts, to envision a brighter future, and she could not help but smile. Natalie looked back at Tseyo and said, "Thank you for talking with me."

"You spoke with me last night when I was sad," he replied with a smile. "It was the right thing to do." Tseyo paused, looked down, and said, "You know, one thing I remember fondly about Mehi'a is that she was one of our people's best dancers."

He looked at her with a smile and expectant eyes, and she let out a short laugh. "Once everyone else is asleep," she said, "we'll go to the dream world to watch dancers."

The house fell quiet more quickly than she had expected; and, to her particular disappointment, neither her father, mother, nor Doctor Walsh came down to check in on her. Perhaps they figured she had gone to sleep, or they assumed that, as an adult, she ought to be able to handle herself. Whatever their logic, their actions – or lack thereof – stung her.

Norm did come down to the basement, but less to check in on her than to make sure Tseyo was squared away for the night. First he took care to see that Tseyo was not suffering from the dizziness and headaches that overcame him earlier in the day. After he was satisfied with Tseyo's health, he informed Tseyo that they would be leaving the house tomorrow, news to which Tseyo reacted positively, and then Norm was gone for the night.

Natalie made a final inspection of the house before she roused Tseyo from the light sleep he had fallen to in the intervening period, and then she brought the tablet and two virtual network headsets from her room. First Natalie turned on the tablet to ensure that their headsets were linked, and then she fitted Tseyo with a headset.

It took a little while to secure his headset properly – she found getting the faceplate to cover his full field of vision was the most difficult part – but she managed it. Once he was fitted, Natalie instructed him to lay back into his hammock. She donned her own headset, only bringing down the microphone and earpieces in order to communicate with him, and then she turned on his headset.

"Do you see anything?" she asked.

"It's all white," he replied, his voice muted in the room but clear in her earpieces. "Am I supposed to see something?"

"Not yet," Natalie said. She turned back to the tablet, and she began the configuration sequence for Tseyo to be able to control his avatar. She accepted the prompt, and her tablet revealed the white nothingness that Tseyo had commented on. "You'll see a red spot shortly. Let me know when you do."

Natalie touched the center of the screen, and Tseyo said, "I see it."

"Stay still, and follow it with your eyes." She moved her finger around the tablet until a dialogue box appeared to confirm that the headset had a lock on the brain patterns associated with his vision. The configuration continued for the better part of the next hour, until finally she was able to link Tseyo with his avatar body.

While he adjusted, she pulled down the faceplate of her headset and called up the command to enter her avatar. She felt lightheaded for an instant, and then as though she were rising out of her body. Before Natalie felt too detached, however, she found herself standing in the empty, grey-walled anteroom of the virtual network.

Natalie felt her avatar's hair falling around her shoulders, and she took a moment to shift her weight from one leg to the next, encouraged to feel no pain. Natalie could not help but smile.

She looked behind her and saw Tseyo looking over his virtual body. Although he was more animated in his expressions of surprise, taking particular interest in his five-digited hands, she was struck by how much his avatar body had managed to mirror his Na'vi form. Although the preview screen they had used on the tablet had made a good faith replication, particularly in the gaunt features of his face, it had also done a fair job at mimicking his musculature – even though the default clothes he wore did their best to detract from it.

Natalie realized she was staring too long at his body, and she asked, "Are you okay?"

Tseyo appeared startled to see her, but then he replied, "It feels a little confined."

"You'll get used to it," she replied. "Everybody feels that at first."

He rubbed the small of his back and said, "I can still feel my tail, but there's nothing here."

She nodded. "Your mind hasn't yet grown accustomed to this world, so it's still letting you feel parts of your real body. Once you immerse yourself here, it should go away."

Tseyo took a couple of steps towards her, and then reached out to brush her cheek. "This all feels very real," he said. "It's like having a communion with the spirits."

Natalie nodded and put her hand over his. "Yes it does," she said. "That's what this world is designed to be – as close to real as possible."

He grinned and said, "It's strange, too, that I don't have to be sitting to be level with you."

She smiled and replied, "I think it's better this way."

He nodded, and then looked around. "I know we just got here," he said, "but how will we get out? I don't see any way to leave. Will we wake up on our own?"

She stepped away from him and made a rectangle with her thumbs and index fingers, nodding at him to do likewise. Natalie then moved her hands apart, and a translucent, light blue prompt screen appeared before her with a range of buttons and options. He did the same, with the intended result – although she was not able to suppress a giggle as Tseyo inspected his hands, apparently curious where the prompt came from.

"If you touch your finger to the red area at the bottom right of that," she said once he abandoned the investigation, "you will leave this world. Right now, though, touch the black area at the top left to make this disappear." Natalie again followed by example.

"Now, where do we go to see the dancers?"

Natalie restored the prompt screen, and quickly navigated the options until so that she could transport them from the empty staging room into a virtual opera house. She stayed a few steps behind Tseyo as he walked about the floor, alternately looking up at the vaulted ceiling, from which hung an ornate chandelier, and across the rows of seats. When they approached the stage, Tseyo leapt up and looked out over the hall.

"Do you like it?" she asked, although the awestruck expression he had maintained since entering the hall was enough of an answer for her.

He nodded and replied, "It's strange, but this feels a little like home."

"How so?"

"Whenever there is a ceremony, all the people sit around the altar mound – from the ground up to the branches and exposed roots – to watch the dances. I can almost see them in this place."

She nodded slowly and looked around the auditorium. Natalie tried to picture the inside of Tseyo's hometree – and the hundreds of Na'vi participating in a ceremony – but was frustrated that her imagination did not seem up to the task. Natalie took a breath and said, "Well, if you'll follow me to our seats, we can bring the dancers out."

They sat in the first tier box seats at stage right. Natalie called up the prompt and, recalling Tseyo's fondness for drumming, requested a corps of taiko drummers. Seven drummers appeared on the stage, and they began their performance at her command. When their performance was over, she followed their act with a dance troupe accompanied by bodhráns. Thereafter, she found a troupe whose principal percussion instruments were trash cans and barrels.

Tseyo was enraptured throughout the demonstrations. He leaned forward, hands on the railing, eyes darting around to follow the drummers' and dancers' motions. As the dances went on, Natalie watched as his hand bounced on the railing in synch with the music, keeping almost perfect time. In watching him, she also noted that his eyes were closed, and his lips moving. She strained to hear the song he was singing above the din of the music coming from the stage, but it was to no avail.

At the conclusion of the industrial-themed performance, Natalie was preparing to call up a drum battery when Tseyo said abruptly, "I want to dance."

"What?"

He looked at her with a broad smile and said, "Your music is so intoxicating, I can't just sit here. Can we dance?"

"Not _here_," she replied. "But, yes, there is a place we can go." Natalie took notice of the fact that Tseyo was still dressed in the default outfit that the program provided – a white t-shirt and faded jeans. She let out a short laugh and said, "They won't let us in if you're wearing that, though."

Tseyo appeared relieved and immediately proceeded to discard his shirt – by way of tearing it off. "These are not appropriate for dancing, anyway."

Natalie stopped him before he could slide out of his pants and said, "You have to be wearing _something_, or else we definitely won't be allowed to go." Before he could make a case for abandoning the restrictive clothes, Natalie took them out of the opera house and back to the empty room, where she called up a wardrobe.

As most of her wardrobe purchases were for her avatar, she did not have a wide selection of men's clothes beyond the default options. However, he zeroed on in dark khaki slacks and a rawhide vest with beaded necklace. It was not an outfit she would have put together, nor would she have gone shoeless, but he explained it simply for her. "These feel familiar – like hides."

Natalie hoped it would be outlandish enough that the bouncers of the club she had in mind would let it pass on the basis of uniqueness.

She called up the public rooms and scrolled through her bookmarks until she found the dance clubs. Although one club could accommodate thousands of people, there were so many users that the most popular clubs – even those with access criteria – had to be replicated several times over to accommodate the demand. Natalie chose one such club, and soon they were standing in a queue to gain access.

The bouncers were being particularly choosy tonight, and Natalie witnessed more people being ejected than admitted. When it was their turn to be evaluated, Natalie offered a quiet prayer.

The bouncer managing their queue – the avatar was a tall, bald, muscular black man whose user Natalie was sure had to be a lanky, pimple-faced twenty-something – quickly pulled out their profiles. He looked at hers and said, "You're good, he's not."

"Why not?" she dared to ask, knowing full well the simple challenge could be grounds for her ejection as well.

"Are you kidding? He's barely got three hours of log time. Newbies don't get in here."

"Yeah, well I'm a regular, and he's my guest."

He snorted. "The admins will terminate me if I let a newb in."

"So then maybe he's not a newb," she replied as she prepared to transfer in-world currency to the bouncer's account. "Maybe his primary profile got corrupted, so he's building up another one."

The bouncer looked at the open transfer connection, crossed his arms, and said, "It's going to take a lot of convincing for me to pass that one off."

Natalie offered five-thousand credits. He shook his head, so she raised it to seventy-five-hundred.

"Fine," he said, accepting the transaction. "But he's not protected. If he breaks the rules, you're both getting permabanned."

"Fair enough."

The bouncer transferred a keycard to their profiles, allowing them to open the club's doors.

They walked to the mezzanine railing to look out over the expansive dance floor. Colored, laser lights came down from a ceiling too high up to be seen, such was the capability of virtual architecture, while the floor itself alternated colors. As hundreds of people bounced and danced to the bass-heavy electronica that blared through the space – some carrying glow sticks, some glowing with fluorescent paints, most in their casual attire – Natalie was reminded of ripples moving through a pond.

Once more, Tseyo's eyes darted about the room, grinning from one ear to the next. Still, Natalie felt compelled to ask, "Are you comfortable here?"

He nodded. "I'm trying to find the instruments. They're so loud, they must be very large."

Natalie pointed towards the disc jockey – nomenclature which managed to survive long past the deaths of the stylus and of optic-based music storage – on an elevated platform near the back of the club. "He's controlling the music, but the instruments aren't real," she explained to the extent that his language would let her.

Whether or not he understood, chances being that he did not, Tseyo nodded and said, "Take me down there."

They pushed through the crowd until they were situated on the dance floor, a process that was delayed several times when Tseyo would become captivated either by a particularly gifted dancer or somebody making creative use of glow sticks. By the time they were in a place where they could have some semblance of space to move, the disc jockey's set had shifted to a more authentic drum and bass, his chosen tracks sampling from high energy live performances with minimal electronica woven in.

Though she felt settled, Natalie watched him turn his head about, surveying the scene. She asked, "Are you okay?"

Tseyo smiled and replied, "I'm much more than okay."

She smiled. "Well, you wanted to dance, so—," her voice trailed off and she nodded at him.

Natalie had tried to sound pleasant, but he must have cued in on her word choice. He raised his brow and asked, "You didn't want to come here?"

She took a moment to think about her response. "I wasn't expecting to, but now that we're here—," her voice trailed off again. She rubbed the back of her neck and, with a short, nervous laugh, said, "I can't dance."

He laughed and replied, "I won't believe it."

"It's true!" she protested. "I've tried – believe me – but I can't dance."

"You have the same problem all Sky People do," he said. He poked her forehead and explained, "You're trying to think about it, instead of letting your energy guide you."

Natalie smirked at him and asked, "All right, how do I let my _energy_ guide me?"

"You have to become aware of your environment." Tseyo knelt down and, over her protests, removed her shoes, which disappeared into her avatar's inventory once discarded – something which seemed to catch him off guard for a second.

He shook off his surprise, stood back up and asked, "Can you feel the rhythm coming up through you, now?"

Natalie took a deep breath and tried to think about how to phrase her response. She wanted to explain how a virtual construct could not perfectly mimic a sound's pressure waves, other than the occasional pulse that would create an artificial bump for her avatar. However, as she was about to speak, she stopped herself – to her surprise, the floor did seem to pulse beneath her feet. "A bit, yeah," she finally admitted. "But I could…"

"Ah!" he interrupted, holding up a finger. "I know you could already feel it pulsing against your body, but you have to welcome it _inside_ your body." She was about to say something else when he put his hands on her cheeks and said, "Close your eyes, and concentrate on the sound coming up through the ground and into you."

She closed her eyes as instructed. At first, she felt ridiculous. She imagined the people around them taking sideways glances at the unusual couple who were standing still on a dance floor. However, after a few moments passed, Natalie's mind began to focus only on the music, and her breathing became more even – relaxed.

Natalie felt him move his hands to her shoulders and lean in close to her. He whispered into her ear, "Move your feet." Natalie hesitated. "Don't think about it," he said. "Let yourself feel it, and then move your feet."

Natalie's feet began to move, although it was a far cry that someone with a lifetime of experience might display. She was uncoordinated, but doing her best to keep pace with the music. Tseyo kept her body locked for a while, up until it seemed he was satisfied with how she was moving her legs. At that moment, he lifted his hands from her shoulders and said, "Now move with the music as you feel it against your body."

Once again, she knew she was not going to be stealing the spotlight tonight – not unless the club was preparing a blooper video to upload. But as the music continued, she became less and less concerned about her appearance, which had the unexpected effect of making her feel more confident. It did occur to her, though, that she had not heard Tseyo, and so she opened her eyes to see if she had lost him.

Though he was still on the floor and in front of her, Natalie had indeed lost Tseyo. He appeared as thought he had transport himself home, that his avatar was only mirroring the motions of his living body as he danced about a fire. His feet moved perfectly in time with the music, no easy feat given its speed, and the rest of his body seemed to move fluidly along with the footwork – and even then he seemed restrained.

Tseyo had no problem keeping up with the track as it transitioned to a more frenetic beat. In doing so, he caught the attention of the people immediately around them, and they paused to form a small circle around him; and Natalie was caught up with them. Whether or not he was aware of their reverence, Tseyo continued on as though he might have been the only person in the club – or in the exclusive company of his kin.

The circle grew as others took notice of his impassioned dancing, and people began cheering him on. Then a siren sounded, and an array of lights that had been randomly circling about the club focused in on him. Tseyo had gotten the attention of the club's administrators, which caused Natalie to have a moment of dread. She worried that they were preparing to boot him for being out of place; or, worse, promote him to a more exclusive room, isolating him from her.

While she worried about the administrators' intentions, giant screens appeared where the ceiling might have been, and Tseyo was featured from multiple angles captured by unseen cameras. Although most of the patrons carried on with minimal reaction, enough took notice that a cheer from the crowd managed, however briefly, to drown out the music. Tseyo, wherever he had gone in his mind, registered the cheer as encouragement, and he let out something akin to a war cry in response.

When the track ended some minutes later, Tseyo stopped his dance and opened his eyes. He came back from wherever he had gone, and he appeared shocked that not only was he being watched by so many people, but that they were enthusiastically cheering for him. He offered them a humble smile, and then looked to be scanning the crowd – she assumed for her.

Natalie stepped from the circle at the moment that he got sight of her and took his hands in hers. "What was _that_?" she asked with a wide smile.

"That was my energy," he replied, mirroring her smile.

"It was amazing."

The next song was slower, had fewer samples of authentic instruments, and was light-spirited. The club's administrators' also lost interest in Tseyo at the same time as the song had; and so as the next track picked up, the screens vanished, the lights moved on, and the observers' circle collapsed back into an amorphous crowd. A few patrons took a moment to give kudos to Tseyo for his performance – to which Tseyo only smiled and nodded in response, to Natalie's amusement – but then carried on as though he had never interrupted them.

"You have to be tired," Natalie eventually said. "Do you want to go?"

"I'm okay," he replied. "I don't know if I could do that again, though."

"I don't think it would be appropriate for this song, anyway."

Tseyo nodded, and then asked, "Is there a particular dance for this music?"

"No," Natalie said as she stepped closer to him. "Just whatever you feel comfortable with."

He stayed within the confines that the crowd had locked him into, his rhythm more casual than a few moments earlier, and she did her best to keep up with him – clumsy though it was in comparison. They drew nearer to each other as the music continued, as much due to the increasing encroachments of the crowd as by any other factor.

Without thinking, she reached out and placed her hands on his hips; and she felt relieved when he reciprocated, drawing her close. What little space there had been left between them vanished, and she let herself be taken by his lead. His hand moved up her back; hers followed up his. He took a deep breath, causing his chest to press against hers; she sighed and held him close. He brought his brow to rest on hers; she turned her head so that their cheeks might brush against each other.

Natalie closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose, hoping to become intoxicated on his musk; but she was disappointed. For all that virtual reality had managed to accomplish, its designers had never managed to crack the complexity of the senses for taste and smell. Rumors abounded that they were suppressing such research for fears that people would become totally addicted to the virtual realm – more than already were, anyway – if they perceived that they could taste real food. Enough people died on a yearly basis for letting their bodies atrophy into nothingness as they spend unbroken days hooked up to virtual worlds; more people might let it happen inadvertently if they became convinced that they were consuming nutritional food.

The result for Natalie at this moment was an acute awareness of the artificial nature of the experience. Controlling the avatar she was holding so close was not someone with whom she could carry on in the real world. As soon as she left this place, she would see Tseyo again in his natural, alien body; and he would continue to see her through the prism of his culture. It was not that they would be star-crossed lovers; their respective stars were distinct and distant.

She let go of him and stepped away. He dropped his hands from her and looked at her confused. "Natalie?" She could not think of anything to say. Natalie formed a box with her fingers, brought up the master command prompt, and pressed the button to be ejected from the virtual realm.

After a flash of light, Natalie became keenly aware that she was lying on the floor of her basement. Her hair was gone, her legs were stiff, and her heart was racing. She took off her headset and got to her feet just as Tseyo began to move in his hammock.

He took off his headset about the same time that she had made it to her bedroom's door. "Natalie," he said. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No," she replied, turning to look at him. "I – It was—," she paused to find the right words. Natalie smiled weakly and could only offer a simple, "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

She stared at Tseyo for a moment, as though seeing him for the first time all over again, fixated on his alien features. The lights on his skin were glowing brightly, his tail idly flipped about behind him, and his large, yellow eyes conveyed confusion. Natalie took another breath and said, "I'm sorry for keeping you awake too long. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day for you." Tseyo was obviously not persuaded by her answer, but he seemed to resist saying so.

She walked to his hammock and gently took the headset from his hand, and once she had it, Tseyo took the opportunity to take hold of her wrist. Their eyes met, and he asked, "Please, Natalie, did I…"

"Sleep well, Tseyo," she replied with a smile, gently twisting her hand in the hopes that he would let go of her – which he did.

Tseyo sighed and looked down, and then he took a deep breath and said, "I enjoyed our time tonight, Natalie." He looked back into her eyes and added, "Thank you for taking me to your dream world."

"I'm glad you could see it," she replied. "Whatever else you see of our world, I hope you'll at least remember that part of it." He nodded, and she returned to her room to have a restless night.


	15. Suspicions, Part I

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N - How do you know when you've been without the Internet for too long? When you set out in your car during a night-time thunderstorm to cruise deserted strip malls for an active, Wi-Fi hotspot.

* * *

The team had gathered around the dining table for a light, early morning breakfast while Abe finalized the morning briefing on his tablet. People were still tense after last night's dinner, but the quiet consensus seemed to be that as long as nobody tried to draw attention to the uneasiness, it would fade away.

Norm noted Natalie's absence from the dining room. He was sure that he had heard her alarm go off in the early morning hours as he prepared Tseyo's breakfast; however, when he went downstairs to give Tseyo his meal, her door remained closed with nary a sound coming from the room. He had asked Tseyo if she had said anything to him, and he just shook his head.

Once Abe finished his work, having not put a single item of food on his plate, he sat atop the chair at the head of the table, propping the tablet on his knees in order to give the group full visibility. The tablet displayed a map of the San Francisco area, and Abe began the briefing.

"Most of you are probably already aware of these facts and figures, but let's be sure we're on the same page," he said. "RDA has multiple sites around the city, notably the Alameda Spaceport, the Vancouver-San Diego Railway Control Station, and of course its headquarters."

Abe brought downtown into focus. "The headquarters complex has six surface entrances – two each on Geary and California Streets, and one each on Kearny and Leavenworth. It also has a single underground entrance for the connector rail between the complex and the rail hub at King Street. These seven entrances and one-hundred twenty-eight acres are guarded by twenty-five hundred of RDA's security force, who are mostly off-rotation SecOps. The only place in the country with more law enforcement personnel per acre is Capitol Hill."

"This is all very reassuring and informative," Luke said with a snort. "I actually didn't know that it was twenty-five hundred fucking SecOps."

"They're not all SecOps," Abe replied. "Just most of them."

"Oh, well as long as it's just most of them—," he finished with a roll of his eyes.

Abe frowned and continued. "The pinnacle of the campus is, of course, Bay Point Tower, which is also our target. RDA's senior leadership is almost entirely contained on the upper floors, including Chairman Savage's penthouse.

"Your entry point is going to be the loading dock at Geary and Taylor, at the complex's southeast. That will provide you with a direct route to the tower's subfloors. Once you're through the checkpoint, your objective will be to escort Tseyo through the building and rendezvous with me in the executive suites in the central spire – and from there we'll take care of Savage."

Norm raised an eyebrow. "You're going in separately?" Abe nodded. "So you're leaving everybody else to do the heavy lifting."

"Your job is to keep Tseyo alive so he can attest to the abuses of RDA on Pandora," Abe replied. "My mission is to expose the inner workings of RDA. To do that, I need access to my archived case logs; and as soon as a security breach is detected, the archives seal up. Therefore, I need to be in the building before you get everybody worked up."

"Maybe," Norm said as he crossed his arms. "Or maybe you're just going to stroll into Savage's penthouse and offer us up in exchange for your own safety."

His suggestion caused everyone to look at Abe with wary eyes. Abe simply took a breath and said, "Yes, Norm, I could do that. And then once you were rounded up, there would be nothing to stop Savage from simply taking care of me and thus remove all of us from the picture. Does that sound smart?"

Norm bit down on his tongue, but then he said, "Still, you're essentially sicking the security team on us while you'll already be in the building."

Abe cocked his head and said, "I'm trying to break into the heart of RDA's clandestine operations, and you're going to imply that I have it easy?"

"Easier, yes."

He shrugged and replied, "It's a matter of perspective, I guess. Besides, the point of our meeting today is to take some of that pressure off."

"Let's assume they don't help," Norm said. "You've got to give us something more than hope that it will all work out."

"It's a question of speed," Abe replied. He tapped on the map of the RDA complex, causing the rest of the city to fall away while the buildings emerged as three-dimensional floor models. Abe selected the tower at the heart of their discussion. "There's an elevator in the loading dock that will take you up to the first mezzanine, so that should get you through the first section of the building – the heaviest concentration of guards – with no problem. Depending on how fast you can get to the next elevator bays will probably be the greatest factor in how much resistance you meet along the way. Figuring that out is your task for today."

Abe got off his chair and picked up two of the bags of supplies he and Norm had purchased yesterday, and then laid out virtual reality headsets on the table. "The tower's floor plans you'll link to on my tablet come from the last security protocol review board before we left. Additionally, Dawn has been working diligently on writing scripts to mimic security's movements based on the protocols established at that time."

"So they're eleven years old at least," Norm said.

"Longer," Abe confessed plain-faced. "The board I was on finished its work in Fifty-Eight. Furthermore, the board reconvenes every four years, so RDA has had three opportunities to review and make these plans obsolete." He held his hand up before Norm could respond and said, "As I've said before, there's no way I can have this planned down to the last detail. I'm giving you the best possible information I have."

"Planning an operation on outdated information is just as bad as going in with no plan at all," Amy said with a shake of her head. "Is there any way you can get more current plans?"

"Not from here, and certainly not fast enough to translate into a virtualscape environment." Abe looked around the table as silence lingered on, and then said, "If it helps, Dawn and I have run through the environment a couple of times, and this _is_ doable – but I'll admit that it's because I know the building inside and out. You need to learn the route just as well."

The team peppered Abe with questions for the better part of an hour before Matthew asked, "Shouldn't Tseyo be up here with us? He should know what to do in case—," he paused before finishing with, "If he should find himself alone."

"Tseyo's coming with me and Norm today," Abe replied. "Besides, he seems weirded out enough as it is. I don't think introducing him to virtual reality would be helpful." Norm nodded in agreement.

Abe took a few more questions before breaking the meeting, the tone of which fell from skeptical to critical in a short period of time. While the others donned and configured their virtual reality headsets, Norm headed to the basement to get Tseyo.

Norm found Tseyo meticulously grinding dried petals into a powder. Without looking up from his work, he asked, "Is it time to go, teacher?"

"Yes," Norm replied with a nod. "You don't need to be painted where we're going, Tseyo. We're not going into battle."

"Maybe not today," Tseyo said, "but it feels like I will need to be soon. I thought I should start the preparations."

Norm looked at the variety of petals Tseyo had laid out before him, and they appeared to be a standard assortment. At the end of the line, however, there was an element that struck him as particularly out of place. "You're not going to grind up _atokirina'_, are you?"

Tseyo paused, and then put down his mixing bowl and stone. He carefully picked up the dead woodsprite and said, "This came with me for strength and guidance. It can still serve that purpose."

Norm recalled stories about now-extinct tribes in the lost frontiers of Africa, South America, and Asia who were led by their shamans to believe that certain oils and plants could, with proper application, protect the wearer from diseases and bullets. Even as hundreds of people died from war and famine, painted with snake oils, the shamans would simply say, "They didn't do it right."

He then had a sickening transition to the first battle against SecOps. He thought about the hundreds of Na'vi he had rode out with on direhorses into the mercenaries' waiting guns. He recalled the many colors they painted on their bodies beforehand. Had they contained the seeds of woodsprites? Had they believed that they had made themselves immune to bullets?

Norm's shoulder hurt again.

Tseyo set the sacred seed aside, followed by the tools and ingredients of his craft. He donned his exopack at Norm's instruction, and the two then left the basement for the garage, where Abe had finished stowing the minivan's second and third row seats.

"I think this should give him enough room," he said.

"Do you think the windows are tinted enough?" Norm asked. "Maybe we should get blankets to be sure."

Abe raised an eyebrow and asked, "You want to cover him in blankets?"

"To be safe," he replied with a shrug. "At least until we're out of the city."

Abe was quiet for a moment of contemplation, and then nodded. When he stepped out of the garage, Tseyo crawled into the minivan's storage bay. At first he tried to sit in his usual cross-legged position, but Norm instructed him to lie down. "Just for a while," Norm said when he balked.

Abe returned with a handful of blankets. He handed them to Norm on his way to the driver's seat, who then promptly threw them into the back. He grinned and said, "You've been complaining about how cold it is."

Tseyo chuckled and reached out for the blankets, offering no disagreement, as Norm closed the rear door. Abe started the engine once Norm was situated in the passenger seat; and after the seat belts came down, the car's command module went through the same security protocol as before. Then it said, "I see you're using our 'Stow 'n Go!' feature, but my scales indicate that the weight is unevenly distributed. Would you like to take a moment to readjust your payload?"

"No," Abe replied tersely.

"Are you sure? Properly stowing your cargo will improve fuel efficiency and…"

"Shut up!"

Tseyo peeked out from under the blankets and looked at Norm quizzically. He nodded at Abe and asked, "Why's he angry?"

"The machine's telling him what to do." Tseyo sighed, shook his head, and returned to his concealment.

Brushing off Abe's rebuking tone, the car cheerfully asked, "Where would you like to go today?"

"Java House, Modesto, California. Detour from direct route to Interstate Five-Eighty to California Highway One-Thirty-Two."

"Calculating route." After a moment's pause, the computer responded, "The traffic grid is not reporting any emergencies or obstacles necessitating this detour, adding approximately two minutes to your drive time. Are you sure you wish to continue on this route?"

"Yes," Abe replied as he rubbed his temples.

Norm could not contain his amusement any longer and, laughing, said, "Relax! The car's just trying to do its job."

"Everybody complains about the police state," he replied as the garage door opened and the car began to move forward, "but this is a freaking nanny state."

He sighed and said, "Give the politics a rest, Abe. It's just a fucking car."

"Estimated time to destination is fifty-one minutes," the car interjected. "Would you like me to find a station for you?"

* * *

Before she was even allowed into the main office, she had to pass a credit check, preliminary background check, and verify employment. Truly, this was not a place that wanted just anybody walking in for a visit. Jude thought it was a fortunate thing that she had been building and maintaining false identities for long enough that even the makeshift identity she had set up for today passed the gated community's rudimentary standards.

From there, she only had to wait a few minutes before her unwitting accomplice appeared. "Welcome to Ruby Hill Estates," the real estate agent said cheerfully, hand extended. "My name is Robert, I'll be showing you around today."

Jude smiled and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, Robert. I'm Bethany."

"Pleasure to meet you too, Bethany. I'm glad you were able to make it this morning."

"Happy to come," Jude replied. "I need to get situated in the area quickly, and this looked like a good place to start the hunt."

The agent nodded with a broad smile. "I couldn't agree more. We have several fantastic properties available. If you don't mind waiting here for just a second, I'll get some information together, and then we'll begin the tour."

"Take your time," she said with a smile, and the agent was off.

Jude had no intentions of purchasing a house for this job, although she had done it for longer-term assignments. Her visit today had two primary objectives. The first was to understand her target's surroundings, and the second was to leave her car parked near the guardhouse while it scanned the radio frequency identification tags of residents as they passed through the community's gates. With enough keys collected, she would be able to program a jamming frequency in order to gain access to the community at her leisure.

Robert returned and walked with her to a golf cart. It was only an orange air quality day, so a more climate controlled form of transportation was unnecessary. "Remind me, you said in your e-mail that you're from Philadelphia?"

"Correct."

"So what brings you out to the _Best_ Coast?" he asked with a smirk.

She responded with a polite laugh and then fed him a story about expanding her technology futures start-up. "No offense to the East, but you can't plug into hi-tech out there like you can out here."

Robert's tour began with a drawn out history of the area: The Nineteenth century vineyards that stopped producing grapes naturally by the end of the last century; the development of the premier golf course at the center of the community; the early Twenty First century homes that originally made up the estates but, like the rest of the area, were razed in the earthquakes. "With the reconstruction, we were able to rebuild that classic New Millennial design while integrating modern comforts, instead of damaging the designs with unsightly retrofits," he boasted.

Passing row after row of houses built for society's upper crust, Jude took note of the frequency with which people were out of their homes, places where street parking was common, and how often a security vehicle passed by.

They toured two houses before they passed her target's home, at which point they turned onto a side court. "This property just became available," Robert said. "You've said you like to entertain people, and this home would be perfect for that."

It would have been more appropriate to call the place a palace. The foyer hosted a grand staircase supported by Tuscan columns, under which one passed into the grand living space, off of which were a number of second-order dens and studies. The kitchen was as large as a small apartment, the basement featured a private movie theater and wine cellar for two-thousand bottles, and the garage could comfortably fit six cars – not that anybody would be crazy enough to own six cars, given the anti-congestion taxes levied for multi-car households.

It was not until they were on the second floor, viewing the master of seven bedrooms, that Jude paid more attention to the surroundings. While Robert was trying to cover up the fact that the house did not abut the golf course, Jude stared out the window at the Schellers' property. The house did not present any obvious security deficiencies – given the occupants' line of work, Jude assumed they took great care to reinforce or eliminate such things – but that only meant it was impenetrable to common thieves and amateur investigators. Jude lived by a simple axiom when it came to security: What Man can create, Man can destroy.

"So, what do you think?"

"It's a contender," she replied. Jude turned from the window and asked, "You said this was going for six and a quarter?"

"As of the last appraisal, yes," Robert said. "This is one of our premier properties, though, and I think you'll agree that the amenities offered here justify the expense."

Jude nodded, gave one more look out the window, and then turned to leave the house. "Well, Robert, you've been a fantastic guide," she said. "I have an appointment up in Diablo this afternoon, but is there anything you could say about it ahead of time to save me the trip?"

Robert went on at length about the bonuses of living at Ruby Hill over Diablo, so passionately that it seemed to her as though he had a personal vendetta against the place. When they returned to the real estate office, Robert gave her a packet of information and said, "One more thing that I hope will make you consider Ruby Hill over Diablo is that, just for coming in, in your information packet you'll find a two-day pass to our recreation center – which, as I said, Diablo doesn't even have. You just need to call to make an appointment, and they'll leave your information with the guards at the front gate."

She thanked Robert and then returned to her car in the visitor lot. From the estates, Jude drove to a motel in Dublin where she had moved the bulk of her equipment earlier that morning. She hooked her scanner up to her tablet, and Jude initiated a program to parse and compare the keys she had scanned to identify a master pattern.

While the program ran, she slipped out of the upscale, Sunday casual clothes she had worn to the morning tour and get into a running outfit. In the few minutes it took her to make the outfit change, her program indicated that it was ready to program a jamming device. Jude hooked a card up to an adapter, fitted it to the tablet, and let the machine do its work.

In the meantime, she checked her sunglasses to ensure that the installed microcameras were properly fitted and well concealed. The technology, typically reserved for children's toys, was so low-tech these days that most investigators did not even bother with it; and so most people stopped expecting professional investigators such as her to use it. In Jude's mind, that made it a perfect surveillance instrument.

Her tablet chimed when the jammer was ready, at which point she donned her sunglasses, disconnected the jammer, and headed back to Ruby Hill. Defying Robert's instructions, Jude had no intention of logging her information – real or fake – with the front gate. Despite Jude's confidence in herself, she felt a knot form in her stomach as she approached the residents' exclusive entrance gate. However, once she held the jammer up to the electronic key reader, the gates opened, and she drove up to the recreation center.

In sharp contrast to the background check she underwent to get a tour of the property, the woman at the front desk gave her a guest parking pass without so much as looking at her identification. Satisfied, if not somewhat surprised, at the ease with which she had gained reentry to the community, Jude went on her run.

* * *

Natalie had waited until she was sure Tseyo had left the house before emerging from her bedroom. She did not fall asleep for several hours after their rendezvous the night before, and she was still unnerved by the experience. She was also certain that her reaction had only done more to further confuse Tseyo than bury the encounter.

She had spent most of the night laying awake, running through the evening in her head multiple times, but she found herself unable to isolate what it was that had made her feel so uncomfortable. Natalie doubted that she had serious feelings for Tseyo; indeed, it was the realization that she might be leading him to believe that she was after something more that brought her back from the brink. She was also certain that Tseyo was incapable of having led her on; humans had ravaged his planet, killed his family, and shared none of the qualities that could distinguish someone as a mate.

When she felt she had processed the events of their escape into the virtual "outside" as much as any person could – and as incompletely as she had expected – her mind turned to her first encounter with Tseyo that night. She thought about the blade he had held before her, and his almost casual admission about his feelings towards her father. Despite her best efforts to not, Natalie could not help but imagine Tseyo – the inquisitive, light-hearted character whom she had come to know – killing her father with that weapon.

For all that he said about being ready to kill more people if it meant the safety of his clan, Natalie knew Tseyo was not a born warrior. She had no doubts that he was being sincere, but Tseyo did not have the kind of grit in his personality that she associated with the people of warrior tribes. Yet here he was. Natalie knew his presence here was testimony enough to the way he had experienced humanity on Pandora.

From the gruesome image of her father impaled on Tseyo's dagger, she imagined what her reaction might have been when she learned that her father was never coming home. Would she despise the Na'vi? Her mother seemed to already.

But of all the emotions that roiled her, the only one which made any sense was anger. Natalie was still upset with the role that her parents played in the events which were the source of such sorrow for Tseyo and his clan. More than their involvement, she was stunned by how dispassionate they seemed to be about the sordid affair.

Natalie had been upset with her mother several times in her not-too-distant teen years, but she always tempered her reaction because of all that her mother was doing to keep them afloat. This was the first time she could remember being upset with her father; and although she wanted to believe that he was a victim of circumstances, and though she was certain he loved her deeply, Natalie was finding it harder to think that she would be as lenient with him as she was likely to be with her mother.

After all, he was in charge on Pandora when the consequences of RDA's misdeeds fell heavy on Tseyo and the Na'vi.

She tried to put these things out of her mind as she belatedly resumed her morning routine. After showering and dressing, Natalie went upstairs to scavenge the remains of breakfast; but first she paused at the sight of her father's team lounging about the living room in virtual reality headgear. The sound-muffling technology of the mask meant that, while they were all likely speaking with each other, there was effectively no sound coming from the group.

Natalie recalled a number of news stories related to virtual reality addiction – people either alone or in groups wholly succumbing to the virtualscape. The scene in her living room could well have come from one of those broadcasts, and could easily be supplanted by a group of people snorting cocaine or shooting heroin in an orgy of drug use.

The only sound of the in-world living came from Max, who remained at the dining room table, plugging away on a tablet. He was so engrossed in his work that he did not acknowledge her until she approached the table. He smiled and asked, "Did you get a good rest?"

She nodded while she plated some fruit slices. "I decided to sleep in today. All the excitement of the last few days caught up with me."

"I can understand that."

Natalie turned to the living room and asked, "How come you aren't with them?"

"I'm not as eager to storm the Bastille as they are," he replied. Max chuckled and added, "Frankly, I don't know that they're actually all that eager to do it."

She sat down. "Can I ask you something, Doctor Patel?" He nodded. "How long were you on Pandora? Before being 'marooned,' that is."

"Three years," he replied. "I had two more years on my tour."

"Did you ever try to help the Na'vi before things got so bad?"

Max seemed to wince at the question. He hesitated before setting down his tablet and responding, "That wasn't really my thing – for a while. Sure, I sympathized more with the Na'vi than our side, but I was there to advance our science more than protect their society." He looked away, shook his head, and continued, "But once things really got crazy, when it was too late to do anything to stop the worst of it, everybody had to pick a side. I picked the right one."

"Was anybody trying?"

Max laughed. "Yes!" he said emphatically. "You seem big into Pandora, so maybe you've heard of her. Grace Augustine?"

Natalie smiled and, with a short laugh, said, "Yeah, I have all of her books."

Max opened his hands, as though laying before her all the evidence he would need to make a case about Grace's earnest attempts. "She literally gave up her life for the Na'vi." He shook his head again, and then continued, "And she did it not just to study them, and not just so they'd be comfortable with her poking around at everything, but because she felt like she was responsible for them. Don't get me wrong, she was all business when it came to the science. But I think she was the first one to really appreciate their—," he sighed, grinned, and then finished, "their humanity, for lack of a better word."

She nodded. Natalie was the proud owner of a first edition set of Grace's works on Pandora, published back when Pandora was new and exciting for the people of Earth, when its mysteries were far more so. In that edition, rushed to publication to satiate the public's yearning for information about the world, Grace's writings about the science of Pandora were what one would expect of any scientist – technical, theoretical, and ultimately very dry reading. The only excitement they contained were the acknowledgments of just how much remained to be discovered.

Her descriptions of the Na'vi, however, were more akin to an explorer's logs. They were written hurriedly, with less emphasis on ferreting out the minutiae of their culture, and with the enthusiasm of someone keenly aware of being the first outsider to report on these beings. In time, as the details of Na'vi society were revealed to Grace, her updated editions were edited – whether by Grace or the publishers – to remove more and more of the passion of her writing in order to make the text more scientific and observation-based. The current editions about the Na'vi being published under Grace's name now were dry tomes better reserved for anthropologists than the general public. Natalie had those, too, but she much preferred the first editions.

"Then why was she the only one trying to protect them?"

"Why didn't Columbus care about the Native Americans?" he asked in response. "Because he was there for the spice trade. RDA didn't go to Pandora for the Na'vi, it went for the unobtanium. So it sent people who would go there for the unobtanium, too. You could almost say that Grace was a fluke."

Natalie had not even touched her breakfast, but she had lost interest in eating. Before she could ask Max more questions, however, she heard Vertex barking upstairs. She excused herself and went to her old bedroom, now her father's study, where they were keeping Vertex while Tseyo was in the house – but for breaks outside. When she came into the room, he only gave her a passing glance. His forepaws were on the narrow windowsill, and he was fixated on something outside.

She snapped her fingers, instructing him to get down, and he complied. Natalie walked to the window just in time to see a jogger pass in front of the house. She looked at Vertex and said, "You know better than that."

He looked up at her, his tail still, as if to respond, "So what if I do?"

Natalie knelt down and scratched him behind his ears. "You're going stir-crazy up here, aren't you?" His tail began to wag. "All right, you can come downstairs until Tseyo's home. Just stay out of his stuff."

* * *

Norm had allowed him to be free of the blankets for a while, but he remained under them. Even though his teacher might have been speaking in jest when he noted Tseyo's frequent complains about how cold this planet was, Tseyo had been honest each time.

He had taken the opportunity to survey his surroundings, and what he had seen did as much to make him return to the covers as the temperature. Where the hills ought to have been verdant, they were a sick brown. Wherever there was a patch of green, it looked to be deliberately maintained – although he would not have been surprised to learn that these spots of natural life were, in fact, as artificial as they appeared against the otherwise dying landscape.

Wrapped in the blankets, as he half-heartedly listened to – though he hardly understood – the infrequent chatter between his teacher and T'ngyute, his thoughts drifted back to the night before. Natalie was too kind of a spirit to tell him what it was that he had done wrong, but it was plain to him that he had somehow bothered her.

She had taken his confession about his feelings towards her father surprisingly well, but he thought that might have well been because her father had angered her at the meal. Whatever she had been feeling that allowed her to take his admission in stride, he did not think that was what caused her to disengage so suddenly from their time together in the dream world.

Had he embarrassed her? As they walked through the dancing space, Tseyo had noted the few decent dancers in the crowd of amateurs – even if the Sky People had different standards as to what could be considered a dance, it was plain to him that few people in the dream world were up to those standards. Natalie, too, had shown herself to be honest when she said she was not the most capable of dancers.

Though it seemed to him that the crowd had welcomed his display, he was keenly aware that there was much about the Sky People's culture that he remained ignorant of. He had worried that he had insulted Natalie for outclassing her. So when the crowd had begun to fill in after having given him the space to perform, he wanted her to feel comfortable with him again; but he worried that his gesture might have come too late.

That he might have harmed his friendship with Natalie, who had seemed to show a genuine commitment to him since he arrived in her home, troubled him. As much as Tseyo liked Norm, as much as he knew his overtures towards him were genuine, he knew his teacher had a purpose in mind for their time together. Natalie, however, had no apparent agenda. She wanted to teach him, and she was also open to being taught.

When they returned to the home after this meeting – _if_ they returned, as Norm's tone seemed to indicate when he had described it – he hoped to be able to make up for whatever offense he had committed.

Tseyo took a deep breath as his worries became woven into almost all of his thoughts. When he recalled holding Natalie close, he recalled the night spent with Naw'ngié. Both Jakesully and Norm had explained to him that, even though his journey to this world would seem to take as fast as a night's sleep, that much more time would actually pass; and so he hoped that Naw'ngié had, in that time, found happiness with a mate – the same happiness he had forfeited to come here.

He tried to think about home in broad strokes, about his most memorable hunts and ceremonies, but all that did was to make him think about how far away all those things seemed to be. He worried if any of the people he was thinking about were, in turn, thinking about him, or if he was forgotten, as though in exile. Tseyo saw images of the things he had left behind being gathered and buried in a shallow grave, a ritual given for warriors who go out on a hunt and, for causes known only among the jungle and Eywa, never returned.

It was at this moment that Norm tapped him on the shoulder and asked, "Are you okay? You've been quieter than usual."

"I'm enjoying the warmth of the blankets," he replied not dishonestly. "I'm not looking forward to having to shed them."

"Unfortunately it might be too strange for the others if you didn't," he said with a chuckle.

Tseyo offered, "Everything here is strange enough as it is, so why would that be any stranger?"

"That's a good question." He took a breath and then went back to his original question. "Truthfully, though, are you feeling nervous?"

Tseyo tried to channel Nakllte in his reply. He sat upright and said, "Yes, but warriors suppress their fears in order to overcome the thing that makes them afraid. I think I'll be able to do the same."

Norm did not appear to be satisfied by his response, but he did not ask outright for him to clarify himself. Instead, he asked, "What has Natalie been spending your time on?"

"Your people's music and dances." Norm raised his brow, and so he added, "She could see that I was uncomfortable in your world, so she's been showing me that our people are not entirely different. It's a lesson I think we – and you – could have benefited from when your people came to my world."

"Some of us tried," Norm replied, sorrow in his voice.

"Some," Tseyo said with a nod. "But then there were those of you—," he looked over at T'ngyute to complete his thoughts.

T'ngyute must have discerned that the conversation had turned to him, as he had shown time and again to be very good about detecting, prompting a brief side discussion between him and Norm. At the end of their aside, Norm said, "He wants to know if Natalie said anything to you after the meal last night."

Tseyo scoffed and said, "He's her father. He should ask her himself."

Norm frowned and replied, "I don't disagree, but I can't tell him you said that – it'll just make him mad." Tseyo just shrugged; and so, with a sigh, Norm translated his response for T'ngyute.

After a few moments of silence, Norm conveyed T'ngyute's response. "When you have children, maybe you'll understand better."

"My parents would never have let me or my sister be angry for so long without their comfort," he said tersely. "Maybe when you start being a father, you'll understand better."

He watched T'ngyute's body tense up. In the reflective stone on the ceiling of the machine, he could see his skin become flush with blood and his eyes widen in anger. Tseyo looked down to see that T'ngyute's knuckles had gone white in a tight fist. Tseyo grinned. Even though he had been honest with Natalie that he no longer wanted to kill her father, he would never miss an opportunity to hurt him.

However, to his disappointment, T'ngyute did not throw a punch. Instead he muttered a reply, and Norm did not translate it. "What did he say?" he asked.

"It doesn't translate well," he replied. Norm sighed again and, giving him a stern look, said, "You know he didn't choose to leave Natalie, right?"

"That doesn't matter," he said. "He shouldn't be ignoring his responsibilities now that he's back."

"He's trying to make amends for what happened to your people. You don't have to like him – I don't – but you shouldn't be provoking him, either."

Tseyo frowned, taking his teacher's words to heart, and then sat with his back against Norm's seat – facing away from both him and T'ngyute. "I'm still not sorry I said it. It was honest." Norm did not offer a response, and the three of them fell silent.

Contentious though the exchange had been, it did manage to break Tseyo from the downward spiral of his thoughts. Now all he could do was wonder how much longer he had to suffer the company of T'ngyute. He was briefly distracted from his thoughts when, through the portal at the rear of the machine, Tseyo noted three lights rapidly approaching.


	16. Suspicions, Part II

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

The hunting party had come back later than expected yesterday, and so Jake was helping to carve and preserve the take in time for the night's celebration. About the time that he had finished skinning a hexapede, a male approached him. "_Olo'eyktan_, you need to come out to the fields," the warrior said. "It's about your son."

Jake's heart skipped a beat. "Is he hurt?"

"Not him," the warrior replied with a shake of his head. "Follow me."

He laid down the tools, stood, and hurriedly followed the warrior outside. Things appeared normal – small groups of people going about their business, either in idle chatter, crafts, or weapons training – until they approached a gathering of children with a handful of adults milling about. When the people saw Jake approach, they gave him modest, deferential bows, and stood aside. At the heart of the circle, a woman was trying to give comfort to Eytukan. When Eytukan saw Jake, he stood up and ran over to hug his leg.

Jake knelt down and held his son to his chest, letting him cry into his shoulder. He looked at the woman who a moment before had been holding him and asked, "What happened here?"

"I don't know," she said with a shrug. She indicated the other adults and continued, "We were going out to harvest seeds for tonight when we heard a scream from the children here. We came over, and one of them was lying on the ground, bloodied, and your son was very upset."

He looked around for one of the older children and, meeting eyes with a boy, asked, "What doesn't she know?"

The boy shifted weight on his feet, hesitating to respond, and then said, "We were going to play Hunters and Demons. Ximok and I were making the teams, and we were going to put Eytukan with the demons. He didn't want to be with the demons. So he and Ximok fought, and Eytukan hit him with a rock."

Hunters and Demons, the new name given to a long-time children's game that was, from what Jake had seen, an aggressive, team-based version of Tag. When Jake was under Neytiri's tutelage, she had called the game Thanators and Hammerheads. In order for a team to win, the members of the other team had to be felled, which was accomplished by tackling and pinning a member of the opposing team to the count of four. If the teams were large enough, and the players skilled enough, the game could last from sunrise to sunset; and given its aggressive nature, it was not uncommon for children to walk away with vicious cuts and bruises.

However, for one child to clobber another with a stone during the course of the game, much less outside of it, was a rare and all together separate issue. Jake's eyes went wide at the boy's report. He loosened his embrace on his son, holding him away at less than an arm's length, and asked, "Is that true?"

Eytukan wiped his eyes and was trying to get a hold of his breathing, but before he could respond, his friend, Jake, the first-born of the clan leader's one-time rivals, stepped out from the group and spoke up. "Ximok and Fpäi were taunting him, _Olo'eyktan_! They said he had to be with the demons because he was born from demons."

"That's not what we said!" the boy, Fpäi, who had given Jake the first report of the incident, shouted back.

"Yes you did!" Eytukan, finding a measure of control, countered. "You said more, too."

Jake reached out and turned his son's head back towards him. "Forgetting what he said, did you hit Ximok with a rock?"

His son's friend walked over and handed Jake a large stone, larger than his son would be able to form a full fist around. However, the exposed side had a significant amount of blood on it. "He was just standing up to them," the child said. "I would have done the same thing if he called my mother a demon."

Jake felt a flash of anger in him. Certainly if any adult were to call Neytiri a demon, he would find it difficult to have a restrained response; but for a child, his son, to get so violent was unsettling. Jake sighed, placed the stone on the ground, and replied, "You would have been wrong to do it, too."

He stood, picking up Eytukan, and asked the children, "Do you still want to play your game?" Most of them nodded. "Then let me divide the teams." With his free arm, he made a wide arc over the half of the group that included his son's friend and declared, "You are the hunters." His hand swept over the other half and, with a hard eye towards Fpäi, said, "You are the demons."

Fpäi frowned, but he knew better than to voice opposition to what Jake had effectively made an official proclamation as clan leader.

Jake figured the wounded child had been carried inside so his wounds could be treated, and so he took Eytukan to see the results of his actions. Eytukan meekly protested, "But he said it about mother."

"We'll talk about that shortly," Jake replied.

His suspicions were accurate. Not too far inside Hometree, Ximok was being tended to by an experienced healer while his family stood over him. Jake knew the child's parents in passing, although he was most familiar with their eldest daughter, Kalhang, who stood out as one of the clan's most capable young hunters. When they saw Jake approach, they began to stand in deference to him, but he stopped them with a wave of his hand.

He set Eytukan on the ground and then sat beside Ximok. "How is he?"

"He'll be fine," the healer said. "It was a deep cut, but not too serious." The healer turned Ximok's head so Jake could see the wound, and it gave Jake reason to be concerned with the healer's medical opinion. Jake knew, though, that for a wound to be "serious" in the eyes of a healer, it would have to prevent one from either hunting or mating; however, this wound was not as easily dismissed as the healer sounded. The gash went from the boy's temple to just above his upper lip. Even with the best treatment, it was going to become a prominent, lifelong scar.

Ximok's mother looked up and said, "Olo'eyktan, he told us what he said to upset your son." She shook her head, continuing, "I don't know where he would have gotten the idea to say such things. Hakxé and I loved Neytiri as a sister." The father, Hakxé, nodded in agreement with his mate.

"Thank you," Jake replied, "but this was too much." He looked over at Eytukan and said, "I promise that he'll be punished." Eytukan looked surprised, if not further hurt, but did not protest.

"Ximok, too," Hakxé said. "He shouldn't be using those words carelessly."

Jake let out a short laugh. "I think he's been punished enough, don't you?"

Hakxé shook his head and replied, "Your son retaliated for an offense, but it's the parents' place to punish."

Jake was inclined to disagree. He remembered vividly the cases where either he or Tom would get into fights – either with each other or other children – and would come out worse for the wear. His mother or father, whoever was the first parent to see the wounds, would often just patch up the wounds and say, "Let that be a lesson to you." If it was his mother, the lesson would have been to not get into the situation again; however, if it was his father, the lesson would have been to be stronger the next time.

His opinions notwithstanding, he decided not to push the issue further. Jake stood – and could not prevent Ximok's family from standing with him – and said, "I'm sorry we had to see each other like this." They nodded. He put a hand on the daughter's shoulder. "Kalhang did well in the last hunt. When we hand out the meat tonight, I will tell them that your family can have its choice for cuts of meat." It was a genuine gesture of appreciation for her efforts, but he also hoped that, given the circumstances, it might not sour relations between them.

They thanked him, and then he took Eytukan back to their hammock. He looked his son in the eyes and asked, "Do you want to tell me why you thought it was appropriate to hurt him like that?"

"I told him to stop," Eytukan replied. "I said I'd hurt him if he didn't, and he didn't."

Jake had a flashback to briefings on the rules of engagement when dealing with hostile civilians.

"Was he holding a weapon?"

"No."

"So then why did you use one?"

Eytukan paused, and then replied, "Because I was angry." He seemed to anticipate Jake's next question. "They always put me with the demons! They knew you were a dreamwalker before I did."

Jake stepped around the association between dreamwalkers and demons to continue his lecture. "But they still let you play with them, right?" Eytukan nodded. "Do you think they will next time?" Eytukan looked away from him, as though he were searching for an answer. Jake turned him so he was looking into his eyes and said, "There are some times when it's okay to use force, and times when it's not. When it comes to games, it's not okay to use force.

"If they put you on a team you don't want to be on, the best thing to do is to be the best player so that they will want you on their team the next time you play. Do you understand?"

"Yes, father."

Jake put his hands on his son's cheeks and said, "I know it hurts to be called names. When I came to the clan, they said all kinds of things about me. You just have to ignore them and show that you're a better person."

"But they were calling _you_ and mother demons, too," he said, perhaps hoping to stave off the coming punishment.

"Those are just words. You heard Ximok's mother, right? She still respects Neytiri because of how she acted. That's how the people will see you, too – by how you behave."

"That still doesn't make him right," Eytukan replied, pouting.

"It doesn't make you right, either." Jake took a deep breath before handing down his punishment. "You can't have any _utu mauti_ until Ximok's cut has healed, and you are also to be up here as soon as the sun is a hand's width above the setting horizon."

Eytukan looked pained, but he knew better than to resist. He nodded slowly and replied, "Yes, father."

Jake leaned forward and kissed his forehead. He then picked up his son and said, "We still have a lot of meat to cut for tonight. Would you like to help?" Eytukan nodded more enthusiastically, eliciting a smile from Jake. "All right, then let's go."

* * *

Who was that alien to render judgment on his parenting? Natalie had made the point very clearly that she had become an adult in his absence. As such, she did not need her parents running for her after every outburst. Was it not proof enough that he cared that he had asked Tseyo if she had spoken with him?

If Abe were not so certain about the outcome, he would have gladly turned in his seat to take a shot at Tseyo.

But while Tseyo had been looking down his still-intact nose at Abe for his failings as a father, sentries for the Soldiers of Gaia posted along the highway had picked up Abe's minivan. While a car pulled out from a side road to slow down the traffic behind them, a trio of motorcyclists sped down the highway to catch up.

Abe might have noticed this sooner had he not been carried away by his anger, but it was not until the minivan was a moment away from being overtaken that he saw the play unfolding. "All right, here we go," he said.

Norm, who appeared to have been similarly distracted, gauged the unfolding situation and said, "But we're not at Modesto."

"We weren't going to Modesto," Abe said. "That was just a cover location in case someone was listening in. The highway was always the meeting spot – that's why we detoured."

The motorcycle on the driver's side of the van pulled up to Abe's window, while the third motorcycle raced to be in front of the minivan. When the motorcycle along the car's driver's side had successfully matched the car's speed – not too difficult, Abe noted, given that the automated highway network forced it to stay at a constant speed – a helmetless woman riding on the motorcycle's backseat rapped the butt of her pistol on Abe's window.

Once she had his attention, she indicated for him to roll the window down. When Abe went for the button to lower the window, Norm, surprised, asked, "What are you doing?"

"If she wanted to shoot me, she could have done it through the glass," Abe replied. "Just relax, Norm."

He scoffed and asked, "What are you, an expert in armed hijackings, too?"

"Well, there was this one time I went to Pandora, and some strung-out hippie boarded my shuttle and forcibly disembarked me and my driver. I think I handled that situation pretty well."

Norm just shook his head and went back to paying attention to the motorcycle on his side of the car.

The woman tapped on the window again, more forcefully this time, and Abe quickly lowered the window. Once the glass was gone, the woman leaned in, pointed at the motorcycle ahead of them, and commanded, "Follow him – and don't do anything stupid."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Abe replied, having to raise his voice to compensate for the airstream whipping past the window. "But I can't get the car off autopilot."

"It's a bitch, ain't it?" Again, she pointed at the lead motorcyclist. "He's going to take care of that."

Almost on cue, the lead motorcyclist pulled what looked from a distance like a radar gun from his holster and turned to point it at Abe. A second later, the minivan's electronics seemed to short out, but recovered quickly. Once they were back online, the built-in navigator said, "Manual drive engaged. Please drive safely."

"Finally!" Abe exclaimed as he enthusiastically grabbed the wheel and put his feet on the pedals. "I feel normal again."

"Normal for you is very disturbing," Norm said.

Less than a minute later, the motorcyclist indicated an upcoming side road, and Abe acknowledged him by putting on his turn signal. The motorcycle on Norm's side fell into a trailing position to allow for the turn; and not long after they were on the side road, the car which had been holding up traffic to allow for the capture sped up to join the convoy.

Two miles down the poorly-kept road – twice Tseyo complained when his head hit the ceiling following encounters with potholes; once by Abe's inability to maneuver around it, the second time because he aimed for it – the Soldiers guided Abe into an abandoned farming complex, and from there into a barn that was occupied by more of their compatriots. They could have been wearing uniforms for the way they stood on guard, weapons in hand, but were instead dressed as any other person. For whatever reason, that was more unsettling to Abe than if they had all been wearing uniforms.

When Abe killed the engine, he looked at Norm and said, "Again, just stay calm." He nodded back to Tseyo and said, "Make sure he stays calm, too."

"Easier said than done."

"Make it happen."

The woman approached the minivan, gun pointed at Abe, and commanded, "You – just you – get out of the car." Abe casually stepped out of the vehicle, at which point he was brusquely grabbed by two of the Soldiers and forced to put his hands behind his head. She then turned her gun to Norm and commanded him out of the car, where he was put in the same position. She nodded to Abe and said, "Help my friends search your trunk."

"My keys are in my pocket, I need…" he was interrupted when one of his two captors reached into Abe's pocket and took the keys out for him. They made him keep his hands behind his head as they led him to the rear of the vehicle, where they tossed the keys to a third person. Just before she pressed the button to open the rear door, Abe said, "Try not to freak out."

Abe felt a gun barrel press against the small of his back. "Keep your mouth shut until we tell you otherwise," one of his guards said. "Open the door."

The third Soldier pushed the button on the keypad, and the rear door slowly opened. It did not have to be fully opened, however, before Tseyo was visible to them; and each of the guards made a unique, vulgar exclamation at the sight of him. They stepped away from the minivan, and one of the males said, "Kel – Uh, Commander, you need to be here. Like, now."

The woman who had commanded Abe and Norm from the vehicle stepped around and, like the others, was surprised to see Tseyo. After a moment of hesitation, she turned to the others and said, "Get him out of there." When they did not comply immediately, she barked, "Now! Let's go!"

It took some coaxing, but Tseyo crawled out from the trunk, warily eyeing the guns, and was led with Abe to Norm's side, drawing expressions of disbelief from the rest of the gathered Soldiers. They moved in to get a closer look at Tseyo, but their commander waved them off. "Stay at your posts," she ordered. When they obeyed, she looked up at Tseyo and said, "I'm not going to break my neck to talk to you, and I sure as hell don't need your crotch in my face. Get on your knees."

He gave her a confused look, and then casually shrugged his shoulders. Norm intervened. "He doesn't speak English."

She snapped in Norm's direction, and his personal guard pushed him with the butt of his gun. "What, did you get a Chinese avatar driver or something?"

"He's not an avatar," Norm said, again receiving a push from his guard.

"Yeah, I believe that," the commander said. "A couple of RDA goons just happen to be carting around a real, live Na'vi."

"Commander, hit it with E-M-P," a Soldier said.

She turned and asked, "Did I ask for your opinion, Sergeant?"

"I was in RDA's research program, Commander," he continued. "The way an avatar body links to a human driver is with biomechanical receptors that are engineered into the brain at the fetal stage. They get their energy from the body, but they're still machines. A strong enough – or close enough – blast of E-M-P would be enough to disrupt the link. If you hit him with a pulse and he drops dead, you'll know for sure."

The commander turned away from her subordinate to look at Norm. "Are you supposed to be his mother?"

"I was his teacher on Pandora."

She scoffed and shook her head. "Fine, I'll play along with your bullshit for another couple of minutes. Tell him to get on his knees." Norm did as she told, and Tseyo got onto his knees. She walked towards one of three full-sized, windowless vans that were parked in the barn, from which she drew what looked like an oversized rifle.

"You have one more chance to come clean," she said to Abe as she calibrated the gun. "If he drops, the two of you are going to join him." She called out, "The rest of you, turn off any electronics you've got."

Abe replied simply, "You won't be disappointed."

Seconds later, she leveled the rifle at Tseyo and called out, "Are we ready?" Over the chorus of responses, Abe heard a hushed exchange between Norm and Tseyo, who promptly turned off his exopack.

Abe looked over to see that Tseyo's expression was less than stoic, but he did not appear to be on the brink of panic. When the commander pulled the trigger, Abe had been expecting something from a science fiction movie – rays of intense blue light spewing forth from the barrel while sparks emanated from every conceivable electric device as they shorted out. Instead, the rifle let out a high pitched whine, and then promptly turned off with an anti-climactic click. The barn's overhead lights soon followed, although their loss was barely noticeable against the natural light of the morning sun. Abe could only hope that the minivan was not fried.

Tseyo remained upright on his knees.

"I'll be damned," the commander said as she lowered the rifle. "All right, people, load up your gear and let's head out." She looked at the guards who continued to stand watch over him, Norm, and Tseyo, and said, "Search them and then load them up. Leave their car here."

While the rest of the Soldiers stripped the barn of any incriminating evidence, the guards which had been keeping watch over them did not hesitate to give him and Norm thorough body searches. As they prepared to load them into the vans, the commander asked with a nod towards Tseyo, "Did you get him, too?"

"Blue?" one of the guards asked. She nodded. "Commander, he's basically naked. I can practically see…"

"He's with them," she said, interrupting him. "That means we don't trust him. If it were some guy in a loincloth, I might let him pass. But he's ten feet tall. They could have easily taped a gun under there. So check his pack and his package, and then load them up."

The guard sighed. "Yes, ma'am."

* * *

"All right, kid, you're newest here," an older guard said. "Time to earn your place."

The young guard went wide-eyed. "Fuck you, man," he replied. "I'm not touching him. I mean, look at him. He looks pissed off enough without me feeling him up."

"Soldier, I'm _ordering_ you to search him," the superior said. He looked at Norm and said, "You, tell the alien what's coming so we can get this over with."

He looked at Tseyo and said, "That person putting down his gun is going to search you for weapons." Tseyo nodded cautiously, and then Norm added, "He's going to take off your exopack, and then feel over your loincloth."

It was only the morning, and Tseyo had already put up with a lot on this trip outside of Abe's basement. He had been loaded into a car that was barely big enough to carry him lying down, he had a tiff with Abe, and only moments ago had a gun pointed at his head. So far, he had dealt with these things with a commendable resolve and few apparent reservations. This, however, crossed his line. Tseyo quickly got to his feet and backed away, his tail swishing about furiously. "No, he's not," he said.

"See! Even he doesn't want to do this," the young guard protested. "Can we just go?"

"Maybe that means he's hiding something," the older guard said. "No way we can just let it slide, now."

"Tseyo, just let them do it. It will be over quickly."

He took off the exopack and tossed it to the ground. "If they want that, they can take it," he said. "But they'll keep their hands off of me. I won't be humiliated."

Norm took a breath and tried again. "Tseyo, we need these people to trust us, so we have to do what they say – just for now."

"That isn't trust," Tseyo replied. "Tell them I don't have weapons."

"Sergeant, we don't have time for you to play with the alien!" the commander shouted from one of the vans. "Get him searched. Now!"

"Yes, Commander!" he called back. He leveled his gun at Tseyo, followed soon thereafter by the others, and said to Norm, "Either he cooperates, or he's dead; and if he's the real deal, then that means he's come too far to want to die in some shit barn. Get him to cooperate."

Abe, who until now had been watching the scene with a measure of amusement, chimed in, "Calm him down, Norm."

"Tseyo, think of your people," Norm said. "They'll suffer more indecencies than this if we fail."

A tense moment passed, but then Tseyo hissed, spit on the ground, and got back on his knees. His tail was steadier, but still bobbed about in a kind of nervous apprehension. "Tell them to make it quick."

Norm looked at the guard and nodded. "Be fast," he said.

While one guard stepped forward to check the exopack, the young guard cautiously approached Tseyo. Tseyo leaned towards him, leading with his right shoulder, and pointed at his armband. "Take too long, and I'll add _your_ teeth to this."

The young guard likely did not understand his words, but he certainly understood the gesture. He looked back at his superior and said, "He's wearing human bones, man! This is messed up."

"Get it done, Soldier," the superior responded dispassionately. "We're waiting."

"Nobody told me saving the Earth would mean groping an alien," the guard said. He took a deep breath, looked at Tseyo, and said, "All right, man, just be cool. This'll be over in a second." However, several seconds passed before the guard turned to Norm and asked, "Like, what should 'normal' feel like? You know, how am I going to know—?"

"Soldier, use your judgment!" his superior barked. "You have five seconds."

"All right! All right!" The guard took another deep breath, counted down from three, and then made a quick search of Tseyo's cloth. He pulled away almost as quickly – though not fast enough to prevent Tseyo from hissing at him – with both his hands raised. "He's clean!" he proclaimed as he took several quick steps backwards towards his gun. "Just, fuck, he's clean."

The guard who was inspecting the exopack, who had paused his examination in order to watch the spectacle unfold, then declared the pack to be weapons-free. He cautiously handed it back to Tseyo, who grabbed and donned it quickly. He scowled, stood up, and said, "That was disgusting."

Without knowing it, the young Soldier echoed the same sentiment to his colleagues – albeit with far more vulgar terms.

"But it was quick," Norm replied to Tseyo, "and now we can get on with the meeting."

Tseyo shook his head and said, "You people have very strange customs."

The superior guard pointed at Abe and said, "Put him in van two." He then pointed at Norm and Tseyo, "They go in van three. Bag 'em—." He hesitated on the last order, and then clarified, "Not the alien."

A second later, Norm was shrouded in darkness and not-too-delicately helped into the back of a van. He heard Tseyo board behind him, and then the doors shut. Norm could easily sense that there were more people in the van than just the two of them, and one of them said, "So freaky – his skin's glowing!"

"That's what they do when it gets dark," an older person responded with a snort at the van's engine revved up. "Download a book, kid."

"What are you guys doing with a Na'vi, anyway?" yet another person asked when they began to move.

"Trying to show we're serious about whatever it is Abe is going to ask your boss."

The person scoffed and said, "All it shows is that you RDA pigs are treating the Na'vi like your playthings. He lived in paradise, yet you brought him here to make yourselves look better. Pathetic, man."

"Hey, I'm not with RDA, all right?" Norm shot back. "I'm the guy who stopped the mining—," he had to stop to think, "—eighteen years ago. You don't sound like you were even born then."

The kid's brilliant retort was, "Whatever."

Some time into the ride, Norm could not say how long, Tseyo asked with measureable anxiety in his voice, "Are you okay, teacher?"

"I'm fine, Tseyo. How are you?"

"They won't stop staring at me," he replied. "It's making me very nervous."

"They don't mean anything by it. They've just never seen a Na'vi in person before."

"But they're all carrying weapons. You said we weren't going to fight today."

"We're not, Tseyo. They have the guns because they're nervous."

Tseyo was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Nervousness gives way to fear, and everybody knows what happens when fearful Sky People have weapons."

"They won't hurt you, Tseyo, I promise." Though he knew Tseyo could not see him, he grinned anyway and said, "They're just as likely to grab for your loincloth again."

Tseyo hissed and responded, "Don't joke about that. The next Sky Person who reaches for me in that way will lose his hand. They can kill me, but I won't tolerate it again."

"I don't think you'll have to worry about that," he said with a chuckle.

They were quiet for the rest of the drive, which, when his ears popped, Norm could tell had taken them into the mountains. When the van came to a stop, he was as forcibly disembarked from the van as he had been loaded onto it; and from the way the heat radiated on his hood, he guessed it was either late in the morning or early in the afternoon. He noted the gravel-like texture of the ground as they walked – he presumed under armed guard – which in a short time gave way to a more firm stone. The radiant heat vanished from the hood, and each footfall was accompanied by an echo; and from an aside between two guards about whether or not Tseyo would "fit," Norm deduced that they had entered a tunnel.

Norm walked on for several minutes until he was forced onto his knees. The hood was peeled away, and once he was able to open his eyes in the harsh, halogen-based light, he saw that he was seated in an alcove between Abe and Tseyo. The walls were covered in news clippings with phrases circled – often erratically – and lines of thread connecting distant articles. Parsing the articles, they all had to do with environmental degradation; but the way certain phrases were highlighted and connected to each other made it seem to Norm as though whoever put together this archive was intent on unveiling deeper conspiracies.

He let out a short laugh and said to Abe, "And you think I'm paranoid for knowing the government was responsible for Nine-Eleven."

Abe might have responded had someone with a young, raspy voice, not said from behind them, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." Norm tried to turn to see who was there, but the cold barrel of a gun pressed against his cheek to encourage him to keep his head facing forward. "And then sometimes you're not paranoid at all," the man continued. "Sometimes you're enlightened enough to know that they _will_ be after you as soon as they know you know what it is that you know."

Norm had a moment of enlightenment: This meeting was going to be very strange, indeed.

"Funny enough, that's what brings us here today," Abe replied.

"No, Mister Scheller!" the man said tersely. "No, you cannot know what it is that brings you here today. No person can know what brings him or her anywhere on any day. You may have wanted to come here today because of the chase, but you are here for reasons beyond your knowing."

"Okay," Abe said slowly. "So, why am I here?"

"Ah! Why _are_ you _here_, Abe Scheller? What events transpired to bring you to be _here_?" At last, the speaker walked in front of them, taking long strides. He looked pale and skinny, although the flowing, red robe he wore could well have hidden a more robust body. His shaved head was covered in tattoos; and though his eyes were sunk back into dark sockets, his gaze was intense. There was a moment where Norm thought he saw Abe shrink away from the man's stare.

"You see, or perhaps because you don't, I _think_ you think you're here because you asked to come, and you believe that all men are obliged to bow to your commands. But that's because you don't know the many things you don't know."

"Wouldn't that cut both ways?" Abe asked. "Don't you think there are things you're not aware of?"

"Awareness and knowingness are not one in the same, Mister Abe Scheller," The Monk scolded. "They are not at all alike. But, yes, there are many things I don't know." He walked over to Tseyo and said, "To begin, I don't know why you have brought _this_ fine specimen of creation here to be polluted."

"He's here because I need him to be here."

The Monk laughed – cackled, it seemed to Norm – and said, "Truly, Mister Scheller, you are a poet, and yet still so ignorant. You do need him here, of that I have no doubts. But once again I think you fail to know the reasons why." He let out a long, almost melodramatic sigh, and continued, "Look at him. Trapped in the worst of man's designs, the ultimate hubris. O! Mother, we can do with you now as we please, for now we no longer need your air to fill our lungs! Yet the folly of his enslavement is that he is the master!"

Tseyo looked at Norm and asked for a translation, but he could only shrug in response.

The man followed Tseyo's eyes and then stared at Norm. When he let himself lock eyes with The Monk, Norm found his gaze to be even more terrifying. The man scowled and said, "I have seen the puppeteer, and I have seen his audience. However, I have not seen the puppet."

It took Norm a second to process the comment, but he responded, "I'm not Abe's puppet."

"So you've been seduced by his songs, have you? That's a shame. I could feel pity for you otherwise."

"Seduced?" Norm scoffed and said, "Look, I'm one of the people who stopped RDA's operations on Pandora. I was involved in this way before Abe came on the scene, and I'm here to see it through."

"I! I! I!" The Monk shouted. "Fool, none of this has to do with _you_. These events are neither your design nor your possessions. But, since you insist, who are _you_?"

"Norm Spellman."

"Norm Spellman," he repeated. In fact, he repeated it several times as he paced the floor. By the time one of his subordinates handed him a tablet – how she understood the cue to do so, Norm would never know – and searched it, the Monk was saying his name with such intensity, emphasizing each syllable, that he had grown sick of his own name. "Yes!" he eventually exclaimed. "Yes, I knew I knew that name, Norm-Spell-Man."

Norm raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

The Monk read aloud, though with embellishments, from the tablet, "May the Fifth, Year of the Designed Lord, Two-Thousand One-Hundred Seventy. The Resources Depletion Abomination is saddened to report that the false prophets it sent to restart the atrocities on the tranquil moon of Pandora has found no evidence of survivors of its first failure to enslave the noble Na'vi. 'Surely, this is a great loss to the plebian sheep we exploit daily for our profits,' said the Bane of our Mother, James Savage. 'Fortunately, ignorance is an unending, renewable resource that we will continue to mine for the good of ourselves.'"

Norm was able to put aside the insane flourishes to understand the heart of the message, and it stung him deeply. He was dead. He turned to look at Abe, quietly demanding an explanation, but all he got in return was a shrug.

"So eager were they to announce your death that they allowed the oppressed the chance to mourn you openly," he continued. The Monk turned the tablet around so Norm could see his own _In Memoriam_ page. "And what did they have to say about you?"

"Stop it," Norm said. "It doesn't matter."

The Monk grinned and chuckled. "Yes, many people stop at the threshold of enlightenment," he said. "But fear not, for I will guide you onward."

"Goddammit, I don't want to hear what people said about my death!" he shouted, prompting the guard standing behind him to grab his hair and press a gun into the base of his neck.

"'Rest in peace!' 'Rest in peace!' 'Burn in hell, RDA pig!'" he said. Then he took in a sharp breath and exclaimed, "Oh, Mother!" He paused, and then read, "'Norm, my cousin, I prayed for better news, but I guess some prayers just can't be answered. We all miss you very much, but I hope you'll understand that we found some relief in having closure. You're one of the lucky ones, to have your final resting place be nearer to the Garden of Eden than anywhere any of us will find here. May your next world be even more beautiful. Goodbye and God Bless.'"

Norm lowered his head while The Monk continued reading, although there were not many more comments to read; and certainly none as substantial as the one by his cousin.

The Monk set the tablet down and walked towards him. "Neither a puppet nor a fool, but a walking shadow. See how he struts and frets his hour upon the stage!" He grabbed Norm's chin and raised his head, "Others have become shadows at the hands of Mister Scheller, you know."

"Wait a second, I didn't…" Abe began, but he was interrupted, and stayed silent, when the guard watching over him hit him with the butt of his gun.

"Your friend from the other world inspired me to become who I am," The Monk said, walking towards Tseyo. "Perfect harmony can only be achieved when the darkness is pushed aside, and the light is allowed to dance."

The Monk brushed the back of his hand along Tseyo's arm, following one of the lines of bioluminescent markers; but Tseyo was not about to let himself be stroked like some docile pet. He whipped his arm away with a hiss, almost striking Norm in the process. His actions provoked the guards to point their guns at him, but The Monk quickly set them to rights.

"No!" he shouted, like a child starting a tantrum, his arms flailing about. "No, you do _not_ point your guns at him! No! You would be like the pigs, the rapists, the thieves who put out the light? No! Put them down!" The guards obeyed immediately.

The Monk paced about furiously, muttering to himself and taking deep breaths. Norm went from being disturbed by the man to being truly terrified. He looked over at Tseyo, and to say he looked baffled would be to understate his emotions. He leaned over to Norm and asked, "This is the man we want to be our ally?"

Norm looked over to Abe for anything that might help him answer Tseyo, but it looked to him that Abe was asking himself the same question.

"The light must shine," The Monk eventually, coherently, said. "It must shine. It must shine. It must shine." He stopped midstride, looked at Tseyo, and said, "He knows this. It's all he knows. But we let the darkness spew forth to cover the light and mask our shadows. We _make_ the darkness!"

He began to pace again. "Mother yearns for the light, to turn away the darkness, disperse the shadows and bathe her in warmth. Her true children hear her pleas – they go running to her, to find the source of the light. We are so close, so close, Mother! But the shadows have banded together, and darkness still reigns."

The Monk stepped towards Norm, knelt down mere inches from him, and continued his rant. "There were children who found the source, who were ready to open the light for all. But the darkness was everywhere, and it _scattered_ the children with fear!"

He stood up, walked over to Abe, and grabbed his hair. "Don't point your guns at the light, faithful children," he shouted, "but at the darkness!" With a flick of his free hand, a large handgun dropped from a sleeve in The Monk's robe. He held it to Abe's forehead, using his other hand to ensure Abe, in his futile struggling, would not be able to put space between him and the metal, while the guards leveled their guns at Abe's body in kind.

"Wait!" Norm cried out.

"Mister Abe Scheller brought the darkness over Mother's children, denying her the light!" he said, ignoring Norm and moving his finger towards the gun's trigger. "Mother cannot have her righteous children made into shadows. Shadows cannot handle the light!"

At that moment, Norm realized that he was free. But for the hood he wore on the ride over, the guards had never put him in chains, tied his hands, or otherwise restrained him. He also realized that he was in no mood to witness an execution. He stood up, took a quick step towards The Monk, and knocked the gun from his hand.

Immediately, the guards swung about and leveled their weapons at him; and they might have fired, if The Monk had not held up his now-free hand to stop them. He stared at Norm intensely, almost causing him to fall back into silence. However, he took a deep breath and said, "Listen, whatever Abe did to you guys – whatever 'darkness' he brought – it doesn't matter now. What matters is that he came to you for help, because he's recognized that you guys have the strength he lacks. You talked about knowing things, right?"

"He is aware," The Monk said flatly. "He does not know."

"Trust me, he _knows_ something, something that he needs help bringing to light, or else he wouldn't be here." Norm turned to Tseyo and added, "Or else he definitely wouldn't be here." He turned back to The Monk and said, "At least give Abe the chance to tell you what he needs."

The Monk stared at him a moment longer before saying, "Does the master need his tool to finish his work, or does the tool need the master to give it life?" He waved off the guards, one of whom promptly forced Norm back to his knees, and then walked to the back wall of the alcove, keeping his back to them. "State your case, Mister Scheller, for I haven't got all day to dally."

He heard Abe exhale, and then say, "First, I need one of your vans." The Monk neither turned nor replied, and so Abe continued. "Second, I need you to have your people make a scene outside RDA's headquarters."

"All the world's a stage. It hosts many scenes for its actors' many acts."

Abe shook his head and tried again. "What I meant was that I need a show of force from the Soldiers. My people are going into the – the heart of the darkness, but there are too many shadows running about. Your children need to draw them out so my people can get to the source of the light."

"Is your hunger insatiable?" The Monk turned and marched towards Abe. "They are not _my_ children, they are Mother's children! She will not have you turn them!"

Abe looked at Tseyo and said, "He is here to bring out the light that will scatter the shadows, saving Mother's children. But first I need to get him to the source."

The Monk grabbed Abe's chin and forcefully turned his head to stare into his eyes. "What do you know about the source, Mister Abe Scheller? You brought the darkness over it. You hid the light!"

"I was wrong, all right?" he shouted in response. "Call me whatever you want, but I know now that your – Mother's – the Soldiers had the truth about RDA's operations on Pandora, and I didn't. Well, now I know how to bring it out, but it won't happen unless RDA is too distracted to do anything about it. That's where I need you and the Soldiers. You're the only people RDA is scared enough of to pull its guards off of their posts to let my people do their work."

After the echoes of Abe's voice subsided, silence lingered in the alcove for an almost unbearable amount of time. Eventually, The Monk loosed his grip on Abe and asked, "When does the curtain go up, Mister Scheller?"

"Tomorrow morning."

Another long silence, and then The Monk said, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Mother's children will be told, and they will watch the puppets dance about." He walked back to the rear wall of the alcove and said, "See that Mister Abe Scheller gets what he requires."


	17. Suspicions, Part III

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

The roots of his hair ached from the way The Monk had grabbed him, and he could still feel the gun's barrel pressing into his forehead.

At The Monk's command, he, Norm, and Tseyo were hauled off to another room in the sprawling, underground network. Unlike before, when they arrived at their destination, their hoods were not lifted. A woman asked, "So, Doctor Frankenstein, what do you think about your monster?"

"I assume you're talking to me," Abe replied.

"I'm sure as shit not talking to the Na'vi." She was quiet for a while before adding, "He's really the real thing, isn't he?"

"Yes he is," he said flatly, whatever pride he had in being the first person to bring an alien being to Earth having vanished.

"How'd you sucker him into coming to our pleasant little wasteland?"

"He volunteered, if you can believe it."

"Not really."

"Is there a particular reason why we're still hooded?" Norm asked. "I mean, we've already seen The Monk."

"The whole world has seen Mark," the woman replied. "I'm the person you're not going to see."

"You're the woman behind the curtain?" Abe asked.

"I'm not pulling his strings," she said. "Think of me as being the prime minister to him being president."

"That's a hell of a head of state," Abe said with a snort. "So how is he 'my monster?' I definitely don't remember him from all those years ago – and it wasn't that long ago relative to me, if you know what I mean."

"That's because he was a rank-and-file back then," she replied. "He was pretty chill, too. I actually recruited him into the Soldiery. Then you and the fascists gutted our leadership, so he became an officer while a bunch of hacks filled the void up top."

"You're blaming _me_ for knocking out the leaders who might have kept him down?" He scoffed and said, "If you guys had it together, you should have been able to keep him in check."

"Blaming you?" she asked, feigning shock in her inflection. "He's the guy who got us back in order."

"Jeez, just how fucked up were you, then?" Norm asked.

Abe heard a thwack, a bare knuckle impact on other flesh, followed by a cry of pain from Norm and some loud protestations from Tseyo. A heated argument ensued, which calmed down after heavy intervention by more Soldiers. At the end of the dust-up, the woman said, "Just because Mark will tolerate some pointed remarks doesn't mean I will. Next time you open your mouth like that, you'll be sucking on the business end of a rifle. Got it?"

"All right, sorry," Norm said.

"He has a point, though," Abe said. "We came here because word was you've risen to the top of RDA's watch list, but I'm not convinced you've earned the title."

The woman sighed. "A little while after we suffered the results of your handiwork, Mark and some of his troop were out on a job, but the people up top started wringing their hands over it. To make a long story short, they breached security protocols, and the fascists got wind of the job. They came in and fucking killed half of Mark's troop – and then they 'disappeared' the other half. They got everybody but Mark. That's when he decided to do something about the hacks.

"He was fucking brutal," she said with a short laugh. "I mean, it was like those old movies about the mob, but jacked up. He found one of them in a movie theater, so he sprayed three rows of people with bullets just to get him. He found the next one in a diner, so he rigged a car with some grenades, sent it through a window, and put an end to the diner. One of the hacks got on a train to get the hell out of town, and he hit the train."

While she glorified these acts of terrorism, Abe thought about what had to have gone through the minds of the people who were caught in the indiscriminate fire of The Monk's bloodlust.

"Of course," she continued, "the ones who weren't dumb enough to go out in public freaked out, so they ordered the Soldiery to take him out. They even contacted the fascists to help put him down. Unfortunately for them, they found out the Soldiery didn't like them all too much. You know, if they weren't such retards, maybe they'd have figured out that it takes more than one guy to blow up a bullet train in a crowded station.

"So when we did find Mark, we cut him a deal: We'd finish off the remaining hacks, and he'd leave us the hell alone."

"Did he tell you where to go and how to get there?" Abe asked.

"If he had, he wouldn't be The Monk," she said flatly. "No, he left the Soldiery, and we took care of the hacks. What he did was take to virtualscape to push out his own manifesto. The rank-and-file ate it up. I mean, some people can quote the whole thing from memory. They demanded we bring him back in – and since we didn't want another one of him running around knocking us off as 'hacks,' we did.

"He came in as a group commander, and his troops just went to town. I mean, the fascists put a media blackout on his best exploits to keep from scaring the sheep."

"Maybe he just didn't do everything he claimed to," Abe replied.

She scoffed and said, "This from the guy who ran Minitrue? If the people out there knew just how bad their fascist guardians are at actually guarding them, the whole apparatus would come crashing down. They can't have that, now can they?"

Abe just shook his head and said, "All right, finish the story. How does the country's most capable terrorist go batshit insane?"

"A couple of years ago, the fascists sniped our leader, and Mark was pretty much the natural successor at that point. There were some people on the Line, some long-time Soldiers, who weren't onboard with his ascension. But they weren't hacks – they knew sniping him like the fascists would cause the rank-and-file, even the Soldiery, to go nuts on the rest of us.

"Well, Mark likes to take a hit every once in a while, so these fuckers fixed his batch so it'd look like he OD'd. What happened, though, is that the next time he went to open his mind, it just never closed up. It's like he's on a permanent vacation. Hell, I don't even think he knows that anything's wrong.

"What's really fucked up, though, is that the rank-and-file _really_ eats his shit for breakfast, now. His scapecasts go viral every time."

"Can't live with him, can't live without him," Abe said.

She laughed and replied, "As long as he's bringing in the rank-and-file, and as long as he lets the rest of us do what we need to do to keep the heat on, I can live with him."

"If he's not calling the shots, Madam Prime Minister, then what was the point of our meeting with him?"

"I was hoping he was going to shoot you," she replied candidly. "It was going to make for a great scapecast – maybe our best ever. Another guaranteed viral hit." Abe had a sickening thought of millions of people downloading his execution in the virtualscape, pausing the moment that his head burst into fragments and walking around to find the best angle.

He took a breath and asked, "So what's stopping you?"

"Your friend seems on the up-and-up," she replied, "so it'd be a shame to have to shoot him, too. And then, of course, what the fuck would we do with the Na'vi?" She chuckled and said, "I gotta hand it to you, Abe, I did _not_ see him coming."

"I'm kind of hoping Chairman Savage will say the same thing."

The woman was quiet for a while, and then she said, "About that, Abe. Pablo didn't exactly have the details of what it is you're trying to do, and Mark certainly didn't get those out of you. So I'm going to need you to spell your scheme out for me before I make a decision on this."

"When you say I gutted your leadership, I assume you're talking about the fallout from the price fixing investigation," Abe started.

"Yeah," she replied contemptuously. "That's what I mean."

"My team found corroborating evidence on Pandora. They were supposed to destroy it, but they didn't do a very good job. I still have the original documents…"

"The ones you've convinced everybody are fake," she interrupted.

"Somehow I think they'll accept my _mea culpa_ when the time comes," he said. "Anyway, they're locked up in RDA's archives. But once RDA figures out that's what I'm after, I'm confident they'll do a more thorough job of destroying them than my team did, which is why I need to get in there soon."

"So just hack it," the woman said with a snort. "Why go through the hoops of RDA's site security?"

"Because the archives lock up at any sign of a hack. Hell, they lock up if the new guy in AMIS' front office forgets his password three times in a row. Now, if you know someone who you can guarantee is able to penetrate military-grade cybersecurity without leaving any fingerprints, please set up the introduction."

She grumbled. "Yeah, can't say that I do. But how're you even going to get in the front door? You know you're on RDA's shit list."

"Someone on the inside is going to lock up the employee database that drives the identity recognition software. The back-up protocol, then, is for the guards to manually check IDs against faces and drivers' licenses – and this same person provided me a current badge to forge."

"You're in the fake ID business?" she asked with no small amount of disbelief.

"You don't come up through the ranks of AMIS without learning something about forged documentation," he replied. "I'm no master craftsman, but it should pass by a guard who's been overwhelmed all morning by manual in-processing."

"Well, it's your head if you're wrong, not mine. So what do your friend and the Na'vi have to do with all of this?"

"Norm and his people have been…"

"'His people?'"

"Trust me, ours is a very temporary partnership." Abe waited for Norm to chime in. When he did not, Abe took a breath and continued, "Norm and the other researchers on Pandora kept an extensive cataloguing of RDA's treatment of the Na'vi, and they've put together a package to be released to the media at the same time I release my data. However, since Norm is, technically, an RDA employee, and since I have something of a credibility gap, Tseyo is here to provide a more robust, first-hand account of his tribe's suffering."

"And at the end of all of this, you just expect piggy Napoleon to roll over and surrender?"

"Having worked with him closely for a few years, I expect that, when presented with the weight of the evidence against him, he'll do the honorable thing." He had no such expectation, but it was much easier to lie with a bag over his head than to force a straight face while looking her in the eye. Abe had every reason to believe that Chairman Savage would go down fighting.

The woman was quiet for a while, and then she said, "Okay, so you asked for a van and a flashmob. The van is obvious, but what do you need the rank-and-file for?"

"Once word goes out to the complex's security teams that there's a Na'vi on the loose and headed for the executive level, it's just a matter of time before the tower is saturated with guards," Abe replied. "We need them to be distracted, or at least have a portion of their resources diverted."

"Much as I appreciate them," she said with a quiet laugh, "the rank-and-file are mostly bored teenagers. They're great for spreading our message across the Net and Scape, but SecOps isn't going to get worked up over them."

"Get enough of them together, and security will pay attention."

She sighed, it sounded more in disbelief than exasperation, and said, "You want, what?, thousands of kids to show up on a Monday morning – tomorrow morning, I'll emphasize – to potentially get their heads bashed in by some fascists? I don't think even a message from Mark will make that happen."

"Then what about the Soldiers?"

"The Soldiery isn't a giant noisemaker," she said tersely. "I'll risk some unknown kid getting caught up on Big Brothers' CCTV facial recognition database in order to make a point, but not my soldiers."

Abe sighed. "When do you think you could organize some action among the rank-and-file?"

"Of the kind you need?" She paused for an agonizingly long time. "A couple of days."

"No," Abe said, shaking his head. "No, it has to happen tomorrow."

"Hey, in case you've forgotten, _you_ came to _us_. So now you're on our schedule."

Abe was insistent. "Every Monday morning, Chairman Savage gathers RDA's senior leadership together for a weekly meeting. If they're not all there when this thing hits, they'll have plenty of chances to run off to any one of their backup locations to put together a counterattack."

"So this is a decapitation strike?"

"Not in the classic sense," he said. "I don't intend to go in there guns blazing. But this is guaranteed to cause a crisis in leadership, and there's a very rigid command structure among the executives. If they aren't contained, Savage's successor will be quick to step up, marshal RDA's resources, and fight back – more likely with guns blazing."

"So wait a week," she said casually.

Abe let out a harsh laugh. "Not to be too egotistical about it, but I have a feeling that I'm on top of tomorrow's meeting agenda. I understand my successor isn't up to my quality, but he wouldn't have my job at all if he couldn't get someone to find me in a week's time." He added after a short pause, "Maybe see how The Monk feels about delaying operations for convenience's sake."

Her kick – or one of her cronies' – landed directly on the place where his ribs had been broken by Tseyo's kin, and for a few moments it felt like they had broken again. "Just because I read you in doesn't make you a fucking expert!" she shouted. Then, more calmly, she said, "But you have a point."

She went quiet again, long enough for some of his pain to subside, and then let out a long sigh. "Fuck. All right, let's get the group commanders together and see what's available," she said, plainly speaking to others nearby. "Get the pigs back to their pen."

* * *

They shared a single van for the ride back to the barn. As they had no armed escort for this part of the journey, they were unmasked once they were secured in the cargo hold. Norm reached up to touch his cheek, where that bitch had landed one hell of a punch when he spoke out of turn. "Takes a lot of courage to sucker punch a guy wearing a hood, right?" he said with a snort.

"We're lucky you didn't get us all killed," Abe curtly replied.

Norm was stunned. "What?"

"If The Monk wanted to shoot me…"

He was not in the mood for a lecture. Although he had been a silent partner in the day's events, he had been plenty observant. "Christ, Abe, shut the hell up! There was absolutely _nothing_ predictable about that psychopath. I don't care what that woman said, I'm pretty sure he was nuts before someone double-spiked his brownies.

"And for all the shady dealings that I'm sure you've made over the years, I would put good money on the probability that you've never been hauled off to some cave and subjected to New Age bullshit with a gun held to your head." He shook his head and said, "So you're fucking welcome for me saving your life – and you know it, too."

Abe bit his cheeks and, after no small amount of hesitation, muttered, "Thanks."

Norm sighed and leaned his head back against the side of the van. "Do we even want their help?" he asked. "Okay, maybe that woman's really the person in charge, but if she's willing to put up with that guy, she may be just as unpredictable."

"The Soldiers are the only group RDA views as a legitimate threat _precisely_ because they're unpredictable," he said. "There are also enough of them that they can conceivably pull off any number of scenarios, so there's a reason to fear their unpredictability."

"Yeah, but should we be afraid, too?"

Abe looked to be near his wits' end. He sighed, closed his eyes, and leaned against the rear doors. "What does he think?"

"Who? Tseyo?" Abe nodded. Norm looked over at their Na'vi companion. Much of the time he had been on Earth, even when he was trying to be stoic, Tseyo had about him a kind of juvenile curiosity. Now, however, he had a faraway stare. Norm moved down the bench to sit beside him, though he was, as earlier, seated with outstretched legs on the van's floor.

Norm put a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of his trance. Unlike before, Norm did not give him the opportunity to dodge his question. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know, teacher," he said with a shake of his head. "There's just too much I don't understand about your world."

"Try not to understand too much of it," Norm said. "A lot of it isn't worth the trouble."

"That man they took us to see…"

"_Don't_ try to understand him," Norm said sternly. "He's crazy. That's all you need to know."

Tseyo shook his head. "I've seen that before. Sometimes when a person goes on _Uniltaron_, if he is on the wrong path, his spirit animal will turn on him. It is very frightening for a person when this happens, and they are scared for a long time afterwards." Tseyo looked at Norm and said, "They look and act just like that man did."

Norm let out a short laugh and replied, "You're actually closer to the truth than you know." He took a breath and continued, "But that man didn't commune with any spirit animals, good or bad. He was just being selfish, and it caught up with him."

Tseyo frowned and said, "That makes him even more terrifying." He sighed and shook his head again. "I can ignore his selfishness, but there is one thing I want to know."

"What's that?"

"Does that man want to help my people, or does he just want to hurt _T'ngyute_?"

"They want to hurt the ones _T'ngyute_ used to belong to, who sent him to attack your people."

"You were blinded," he replied, "and so could not see how the woman looked at him. You may be right, teacher, but she also very much wanted to hurt him." Tseyo took a deep breath and said, "I've never said this about a tribe – I shouldn't be surprised, since they're Sky People – but we shouldn't trust them."

Norm nodded and patted his shoulder. "I know," he said. "If we do, though, try not to think too hard about it. Okay?" Tseyo nodded. He looked over at Abe, who still appeared lost in his own thoughts, and said, "Tseyo doesn't trust them."

Abe frowned and rubbed his eyes, at times pinching the bridge of his nose. "Well, there's the Free People of the United States, based up in North Dakota."

He offered a nervous laugh in response. Abe was too well versed in fringe organizations for Norm's liking, and Norm was happy to not know whether that was due to his line of work or an undisclosed hobby of his. However, he also knew Abe was committed to seeing his mission through to completion, which meant Norm had no doubts that he would be willing to go to whatever lengths he thought were necessary to make it happen.

"I'm serious," Abe insisted, heightening Norm's uneasiness. "They were founded by a former Congressman, and their core belief is that RDA teamed up with other corporations to take over the government. So, they declared war 'on behalf of the true Republic.' I'm sure they'd view this as their patriotic duty."

He had no intention to side with secessionists, but he also could not help mutter, "They have a point."

"Norm—," Abe replied, his voice trailing off in exasperation.

"I mean, RDA is a single-source provider for the military," he said more boldly, "Bold Election Systems has a monopoly on voting machines, and politicians' campaigns have been bought by corporate America for two-hundred years _easily_."

Abe looked like he was ready to engage on the topic, but he restrained himself. "Do you honestly believe that this is a good time to get on this topic?"

"Fine," Norm replied. "We'll just sit here quietly for however many hours."

"Thank you."

As time dragged on in silence, the shock of the morning's events began to wear off. When it did, it allowed Norm to focus his mind on the most disquieting of all the revelations: that of his own, fabricated death.

Norm, like most people selected for missions to Pandora, had minimal contact with few living family members. The deeper humanity managed to make it into the void of space, the more it discovered that those most susceptible to space-induced dementias were those with deep ties to others on Earth.

Norm had begun to shelter himself off from his family during his college years, and almost completely severed ties with them during his advanced studies. By the time he was subjected to a battery of psychological examinations to determine his readiness for life on a remote space outpost, he only exchanged a few messages a year with his extended family.

When he and the other researchers were offered sanctuary by the Na'vi for their assistance in fighting off RDA, they knew that they would effectively be committing suicide as far as their families were concerned. There would be no reserved light communiqués with Earth, no chance to send messages home on the next outbound ISV. The first few months were the hardest on them in adjusting to the new reality; but as they deepened the bonds they had with each other, and as children became part of life, the initial worries faded away – at least for the others. Separated from his family, unable to join his friend as one of the Na'vi's adopted people, and having RDA murder two people who might have made long-term living on Pandora more enjoyable, Norm's adjustment took longer.

Yet when The Monk read his cousin's eulogy for his alleged death, all of those worries from years earlier came flooding back; and where earlier he had been consumed by an acute terror by the events unfolding around him at the cave, now he was beside himself with grief.

Of course, he also knew that the grief was the result of something artificial in every sense of the word. He was still very much alive, and even if not, RDA would hardly be sorry for his loss. He thought back to the first meeting he and his friends – some, he regretted to admit, now formerly so, and the rest beyond his ability to communicate with – had with Abe and his team after their arrival.

Abe had told them in no uncertain terms that they would be removed from Pandora when the full force of RDA followed behind him. From there, Norm had assumed that they would all be jailed from their actions, regardless of Abe's promises to the contrary – indeed, reinforced by his threat to frame them for fabricated crimes. However, Norm had not ever considered the possibility that Abe had something far more sinister in mind. Were their deaths pre-arranged, or did that only develop after RDA's second defeat?

The possibilities warred within Norm's mind for the remainder of the ride back to the barn, where they were left by their driver and his comrade, hardly a word spoken by either. After the Soldiers sped away, Abe said, "Chances are they left someone behind to bug the car while we were gone. From now on, no conversations when we're in the car."

"Then before we get in, I want to ask you something," Norm replied.

Abe grinned and said, "I'm not going to contact the North Dakota nuts, if that's your question."

"It's not," he said flatly. "It's from our time on Pandora."

"Okay," Abe said, his brow raised and tone elevated with piqued interest. "Fire away."

"If everything had gone according to your plans, what was going to happen to me and my friends?"

"You were going to be on the first ISV home," he said casually. "RDA would have forced you to disavow any knowledge of any war or other mistreatment of the Na'vi by RDA, given you 'back pay' as hush money, and then sent you on your merry way as humanity's first surviving space castaways." He grinned and continued, "You probably could have made some additional money by selling Hollywood the rights to your story."

Norm did his best to detect any sign of dishonesty in his answer, whether in his tone or in his body language. Unsuccessful, at least to his satisfaction, he pressed, "Are you sure about that?"

He shrugged. "I think it'd make for a good movie."

"Not that."

Abe turned his head slightly, his brow furrowed, and then he appeared to have a revelation. "Norm, I didn't 'kill' you, okay? The chairman probably came up with that after we reported back to him through the wormhole, and then kept it canned until they could drop it as one of the light transmissions."

"How do I know that?" Norm asked, his anger beginning to come to the surface. "I mean, you were talking casually with a terrorist about making people 'disappear' like it was any other day at the office, and you expect me to take at face value that you didn't have it in for me?" He snorted and said, "I may not lord it over everybody, but I _do_ have a couple of doctorates under my belt, Abe. I'm not an idiot."

"_Doctor Spellman_," he began, letting the formality linger for a moment before continuing, "I'm in the business of making problems go away. Yes, there have been times when some of my agents, based on my orders, got in situations that resulted in people's deaths." At that, he gave a brief, pointed look towards Tseyo. He then continued to Norm, "But in the whole of my career, I never once _ordered_ someone to be killed." He added, ticking each instance off on his fingers, "Subverted, discredited, shuttered, imprisoned – yes, yes, yes, and yes, and sometimes all of the above. But never killed."

"So what the hell am I supposed to do?"

Abe shrugged. "Tomorrow, hopefully, you're going to be front-and-center on the world stage. Everybody on Earth is going to know you're not dead. So enjoy being a living Lazarus and start over. I'm not your life coach."

Norm was incredulous. "Abe, I've been gone for twenty-four years! I can't just pick up and start over."

"I'm going to guess that you socked some money away before leaving," Abe replied. "Make the best of it. I'm sure you'll land on your feet."

"You think the bank kept an account open for a dead man?" he asked with a short, harsh laugh. "I sold everything I owned to make that account, and they probably closed it out. The _youngest_ living family I have is going to be fifty-six! Am I supposed to shack up with her?"

"Norm, really, none of this is my problem," Abe said flatly as he turned and walked towards the minivan. "I'm sure she'll be happy to know you're alive again and, yes, probably let you crash on her couch for a while."

Abe might not have been responsible for his death, real or otherwise, but the complete lack of compassion in his responses was just as infuriating. When this was all over, Abe would have his palatial house and nuclear family to hold on to, whereas Norm was looking at fifteen minutes of fame which, if it did not exhaust him, would be followed by a meager existence. Even if he spent the rest of his life with Amy, their common sacrifices would hardly have been worth it.

For all that Norm wanted to say that the sum of his actions had been a great act of selflessness, the people of Earth had long ago stopped rewarding selflessness for its own sake. Yes, he wanted to assure the Na'vi's safety. Yes, he wanted to pull Earth back from the brink of suicide. But also, yes, he wanted a fucking reward for having done it all! Coming back from the dead only to be penniless was not his idea of a reward.

Norm charged forward and pushed Abe to the ground. "Listen, Abe, just because you're going to come out of this clean doesn't mean I'm going to let you brush me off."

Abe was quick to get to his feet, pivoted on his heel, and stood inches from Norm. "I can understand that you're upset," he said, his anger barely veiled. "But don't think for a second I'm going to let you take it out on me."

Tseyo stepped forward and tried to separate the two, but he was not fast enough. Norm gave Abe another forceful push backwards; and before Tseyo could get between them, Abe lunged forward to tackle Norm to the ground.

Their fight quickly devolved from being about Norm's future prospects to a simple contest of wills. Squabbling in the dirt over their own egos, they traded body blows and verbal barbs. Unfortunately for Norm, the years he spent on Pandora without a strong, consistent workout regimen left him considerably weaker than Abe. The instant his stamina began to wear off, Abe took the advantage.

Abe got on top of Norm, pinned his chest under his knee, and landed his fist squarely on Norm's nose. Dazed, Norm only put up a meek resistance when Abe picked him up by his shirt, forced him onto the hood of the minivan – setting off the car alarm – and sent a series of blows into his stomach.

Tseyo finally saw an opening to intervene. He grabbed Abe by his shoulders and threw him several yards down the barn. "That's enough!" he shouted. "Both of you." Norm fell to his knees, gasping for air, although each breath brought air into his sinus cavity and agitated his broken nose. He did his best to ignore the pain, though, as Tseyo knelt down to help him to his feet.

Abe gathered himself from off the barn floor and shouted, "What is it that you want me to do, Norm? Huh? Call up Tom, have him invent a time machine, and go back to before you fucked all of us?"

"Oh, so this is _my_ fault?"

"You're goddamned right it is!" When Abe got close, Tseyo stood and moved to keep him at bay. Abe kept up with his lecture. "If you and Jake had left well enough alone, I could have spent the last eleven years here raising my daughter, and you could have been living comfortably off of your back pay by now."

"There is nothing 'well enough' on Pandora or on Earth," Norm said. "I was doing the right thing."

"So you can either be righteous or you can shut your mouth and live it up at the end of the world," Abe replied. "Man up and live with the consequences of your actions." He pushed Tseyo's hand off of his chest and said, "Get him in the car."

Norm spit on the ground, hoping to get some relief from the taste of blood in his mouth. He wiped his nose and helped Tseyo into the rear of the van. Rather than get into the passenger seat thereafter, Norm crawled into the cargo area and closed the rear door behind him.

Tseyo sighed and advised, "You can't avoid him forever."

"I can for the trip home," he replied.

From the front, Abe muttered, "If that EMP knocked out the cells, so help me—." Despite his concerns, and to their shared relief, the minivan started on Abe's command.

Tseyo adjusted himself to sit beside Norm, at least as best they could, and then reached over to take hold of Norm's chin. "I'm fine," Norm said as Tseyo looked over the wounds on his face.

"No you're not," he replied pointedly. "What made you start that fight?"

"It's too hard to explain," Norm said, turning his head so Tseyo would let go of him. "Just forget it."

Tseyo, however, apparently had no intention of letting the event slide. He put an arm around Norm's shoulder and brought him close. He leaned over and said, "Teacher, you need to take the same advice you've been giving me since I came here. Be calm."

"Tseyo, I'm fine," he tried to say convincingly, taking another opportunity to wipe his nose.

"Be calm, Norm," he repeated, gently placing a hand over Norm's chest.

Norm decided that it was going to be more trouble than would be worth it to try and convince Tseyo that he was fine, so he did not push back against the embrace. Sometime later, the chaos of thoughts and emotions that had boiled over subsided, and even the physical pain became somewhat dull. However, Norm's mind was far from blank, and it began to wander back to his present circumstances.

Another pain made itself known, beginning in his chest and quickly spreading throughout his body. His eyes watered, and he tried to break the tightness in his throat by swallowing. However, the action aggravated his nose, causing him to take in a sharp breath – and his control was promptly shattered.

It was the reaction Tseyo must have been expecting, because he was quick to bring Norm's head to his chest and let him weep. Norm wrapped his arms around Tseyo while he tried to keep himself balanced, but it was a futile attempt. Tseyo rubbed his back and quietly encouraged, "You'll be fine, friend. Everything will be fine."


	18. Strange Bedfellows

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

Natalie spent the day doing her homework. Her house's main floor had been taken over by her father's team of saboteurs, all of whom were immersed in a virtual environment which mimicked their mission objective.

At first, they dealt with their setbacks collegially; however, as the day wore on, Natalie heard ever more shouting and swearing come down the stairs. Vertex, who was otherwise comfortably napping at her feet, often raised his head at the shouting – once even barking back.

Despite her daylong concentration, or attempts to concentrate, Natalie found her homework to be more challenging than was typical for this time in a semester. She knew the difficulty had nothing to do with the subject material, but with the fact that she was no closer to resolving the troubles from this morning.

She had come to terms with her parents' roles in the troubles afflicting Pandora. They were not monsters lacking morals, but they had too coldly calculated the benefits humanity was supposed to have gained by exploiting Pandora against the costs to the Na'vi. That did not make them evil, just too human.

Natalie revered her mother for enduring every misfortune which befell them in her father's absence. She still remembered her father for all that he was to her when she was a child – a devoted father who went past the ends of the Earth to ensure her future. That was the portrait she desperately wanted to hold on to, even if current events were fast overtaking those memories.

With regards to Tseyo, however, her conclusions were less settled. Natalie tried her best to view him only as an alien, a temporary visitor who would, when his mission was over, go back to his home world and carry on with his life. As two species with vastly different physiologies, the deepest relationship they could possibly have would be to respect each other's sentience. Anything after that was sheer fantasy.

She tried to take that impersonal view, and she failed. Tseyo had become a friend in the course of their very brief relationship. That in and of itself did not surprise her too much, as she was usually quick to make friends. What distressed her was how often she found herself looking beyond his yellow, lemur-like eyes and blue, brightly freckled skin to see a much more attractive personality. When their eyes met in these moments, he would never avoid her eye contact or appear offended, but instead he would give her a courteous smile – and then she would be the one to look away.

But that was just her human psychology at work. She was certain Tseyo was incapable of looking at her the same way.

After her conversation with Max, she went back to her first edition set of Grace's books about Pandora. In the volume about the Na'vi, Grace had written, "Mated couples share intense intimacy on both the physical and emotional levels. This may be due to the way they are able to couple with their queues, forming a bond of the minds in the most literal sense, but it may also be due to the fact that Na'vi appear to take great care in selecting a mate _prior_ to making this bond.

"It does not seem uncommon for Na'vi to have spent most of their adolescence vetting partners prior to adulthood and mating; although there have also been observed some very young couples, which may also suggest that the Na'vi are just as capable of finding a partner shortly after achieving maturity as humans – or that the vetting begins as early as childhood."

Tseyo had come to her house Friday morning. It was Sunday evening. In that time, they had spent perhaps a few hours short of a full day in each other's company. The latter editions of Grace's work, fleshed out as she and her researchers collected more data, had only reinforced the fact that the Na'vi are particular about who they considered for a lifelong partner. It struck Natalie as unlikely that Tseyo would, in less than a day, determine that a human was a suitable partner, even if humans might.

That, of course, presumed that Natalie was looking at Tseyo as a potential partner, and she was very keen to convince herself that was not the case. Yes, she had been less than particular in selecting some partners in the past – instances where she was grateful that her father was in another solar system – but Tseyo was not a record-holding athlete on her swim team, an insightful, dreamy-eyed boy in her advanced English class, or a local boy working in her community's landscaping team for the summer. He was an alien.

Then why would she stare?

Vertex barked, interrupting her thoughts, and then sprinted away upstairs.

"Vertex!" she called after him. When he did not come back, she muttered, "Shit," and then grabbed her cane. She hurried upstairs to find that Luke was already dragging Vertex, whimpering, away from the garage door.

"Does he always do this?" he asked. Natalie shook her head, taking hold of Vertex' collar. "Weird. They must sound different coming back than either you or your mom do."

"I think he's smart enough to know we weren't the ones gone in the first place," she replied.

"Maybe," Luke said with a shrug.

Her father, Norm, and Tseyo took long enough coming in from the garage that she was able to get Vertex upstairs, passing her mother on the way, and back in confinement. Natalie was back downstairs in time for the recently arrived trio to enter the house, and she was taken aback with the others.

Norm's nose was plainly broken. The skin had turned a deep purple, was gashed, and there was dried blood around the nostrils. His lip was split, and his clothes were disheveled. Her father also sported a few bruises, and on his own might be cause for concern; but compared to Norm, he appeared fine. Tseyo did not appear to be injured at all, but the expression on his face was of someone who had been through a very trying ordeal.

"Christ, Abe, what happened?" her mother asked.

"We had a disagreement," he flatly replied as he grabbed a washcloth from beside the sink and ran water over it. "How were things here?"

Amy went to Norm and asked, "Disagreement with whom? The Soldiers?" When neither of them responded, she shook her head and said, "Real mature, boys."

"He started it," Abe replied while he dabbed the cold water on his scrapes and bruises.

"You deserved it," Norm fired back while Amy inspected him.

Before another fight could start in the kitchen, Dawn said, "Boss, we have a problem."

"Of course you do," he said with a heavy sigh. "It's that kind of day."

"We can't get to the executive level," she said, brushing off his commentary

Abe furrowed his brow and asked, "Why not? You and I did when we ran the simulation."

"That's because you didn't have an alien in tow," Matthew said. "We made it when it was just us, but then I modified my avatar to be ten-feet tall. The only elevators that will carry Tseyo are the service elevators clear across the building – the same elevators the guards use to deploy to our floor."

"And the stairs?" Abe did not sound confident when he asked the question, and did not seem surprised when Matthew only shook his head in response.

"We modified the protocols to account for the guards being pre-occupied with the diversionary mob," Dawn said, "but unless you get sixty percent or more of them outside – or unless they're really confused – it's just not possible."

"Not unless we go in shooting," Luke said.

"No," Abe replied. "If even one person dies, we lose the moral high ground." Natalie was sure her father intended to say that, if even one person were to be murdered, they would all spend the rest of their lives in jail.

"Then let's hear what the Soldiers had to say," Luke pressed. "Did they even agree to anything?"

"They wanted us to wait until next week."

The kitchen fell into an uneasy silence, and then Matthew offered, "Maybe that's not the worst thing. We can…"

Abe cut him off. "No."

"We don't have a plan in place to pull this off tomorrow, Abe!" he pleaded in response.

Natalie's father brashly threw the dishtowel into the sink and said, "Let me tell you what's going to happen tomorrow morning. Chairman Savage is going to sit down with his executives, get them up to speed on what happened over the weekend, and then together they'll find the resources needed to shut us down. By this time next week, if we wait, we'll be lucky to be in jail."

"Versus if we go tomorrow, in which case we'll all be dead."

Abe was about to respond when Krysta stepped in. "Abe, this has gone on long enough. Seven people and an alien can't barge into RDA Central and take down the organization. It will never happen."

"I know that," he said. "That's why we went to the Soldiers."

"And it's in their interests to have you jerked around as long as possible until either RDA gets rid of you, or they can figure out how to get rid of you and RDA at the same time." She let out a short, harsh laugh and said, "You're smarter than this, Abe. Pick up the damned phone to a news organization and put an end to this farce!"

"RDA will crush the story before the person who answers the phone has a chance to transfer us to a producer."

"Then pile everyone in the car and drive down there first thing in the morning. SecOps isn't posted in every studio in the country."

Abe nodded. "Okay, and then while we're busy fighting a PR war, while the government slowly spins up its wheels to investigate RDA, ICA, and, oh yeah, _itself_, SecOps lands its armada on Pandora and drives the Na'vi to extinction. We'll be soon to follow when the full weight of the government and RDA lands on us." He looked around the kitchen and asked, "Is everybody okay with that?" He locked eyes with Natalie and said, "Ask Tseyo if he's okay with that."

"Daddy—," she started with a sigh. "Of course he won't be."

"We can't do anything without an army behind us," Matthew said. "And if the Soldiers aren't going to come through, then public opinion will have to be a substitute."

"They're right," Norm said, indicating Krysta and Matthew. "Your plan is finished. Frankly, the Soldiers were a stupid choice for allies in the first place. And I'm sure when people hear what we – what Tseyo has to say, things will move faster than you expect."

Abe sneered and said, "You sure about that? I'd have figured you'd believe the _vox populi_ has been smothered by corporate media."

Norm might have responded had the video phone not rung at that moment to interrupt them. Everyone scattered out of the camera's view before Krysta answered. "Scheller residence," she said blandly into the screen.

Where there normally would have been displayed the caller's image, or a static picture identifier at minimum, was instead pure static. The caller's voice was neither male nor female, nor a digitized facsimile of either of the two, but was a synthesis of all three. It made Natalie uneasy. "Abe," it demanded.

"Abe won't be back for quite a while," Natalie's mother responded. She sounded convincing, as she had been giving that response for years. "Can I help you?"

"If Abe isn't there, then how did his van get to your house?"

Krysta bit her cheeks and shot Natalie's father a disapproving look. He, in turn, seemed to chuckle under his breath as he gave Norm a smug grin. He then responded from off camera, "Is this the president or the prime minister?"

Without responding to his question, the voice said, "We need another twenty-four hours."

Abe took a deep breath, paused for a moment, and then sighed. "You know why that's not the best day."

"We're willing to let go of some high value targets in order to get the most valuable one. We also have one condition for our participation."

"What is it?"

"One of our Soldiers accompanies you at all times, and one of your people stays with us for the duration of the operation."

"You want a hostage?"

"If you're on the level, Mister Scheller, that shouldn't be a problem. We will exchange people at our previous rendezvous site before and, if you've been honest with us, afterwards. This is our condition. Take it or find someone else to help you." After a brief pause, the voice added, "We hear there are some people in North Dakota who might go more blindly."

Abe scoffed, and then very casually looked around the room. She followed her father's gaze, and every time he passed over someone, that person would vehemently shake his or her head. Abe sighed and said, "We'll make the exchange."

The line went dead.

* * *

After a very heated debate about why Abe would agree to place one of the team in the care of the psychopaths, people retired to their respective rooms with the previous night's leftovers for dinner. Before he and Amy ate, though, she insisted on treating his wounds.

He winced when she tried again to apply the liquid bandage. It was not the pain as much as the cold gel which made him recoil. "Norm, if you keep moving, I'm just going to stick your face in a jar of the stuff," Amy said, like an officer lecturing a subordinate.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied with a scowl.

She grabbed his chin in one hand, and made a third attempt with the bandage. This time, he managed to keep still. "So, you finally got your punches in. _Now_ is it out of your system?" she asked.

He sighed and said, "Not really."

Amy shook her head. "Fights like that never get it done," she said. "My brothers would beat up on each other like this all the time. Each time I would think, 'All right! That's it.' But then a few days or weeks later, they'd be back at each other's throats."

"What'd your parents do?"

"Sit back, let them fight it out, and then punish both for being stupid."

"So are you going to punish me?" he asked with a grin.

She scoffed and said, "I'm not your mom, Norm." Amy looked away from her work and added with a wry grin, "Nice try, though."

Norm waited for her to finish applying the liquid bandage, and then he shook his head and said, "It's like he couldn't be bothered to care. I mean, just a second ago he blithely agreed to hand one of us over to those nutcases. God forbid we should have a couple of thoughts on the matter, he's sitting on cloud nine!"

Amy closed up the first aid kit and said, "He's probably upstairs saying the same thing about you, Norm."

His eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"

"You heard what I said."

"Yeah," he said with an apprehensive laugh. "But I'd like an explanation."

"Have you bothered to ask him about how he feels in all of this?"

Norm was floored by the suggestion. He was sitting in front of her with a broken nose, in his rival's palatial home, wondering how he was going to make a living after the end of their mission, and she was trying to make Abe out to be the victim. "Why would I do that?" he asked. "Is he on the brink of a breakdown because his wife sold his Mercedes? So what?"

"He missed his daughter growing up, his marriage is clearly on the rocks, and he's waging a desperate fight against everything he's known before now in order to regain some kind of normalcy," she calmly explained. "Do you think he really feels like he's on top of the world?"

Norm raised an eyebrow. "How do you know his marriage is on the rocks?"

"Call it woman's intuition," she replied. "Their marriage survived high-stress jobs and a terminally ill child, and now Abe's wife is almost never in the same room as he is. Hell, Abe was lucky enough to not come home to find a new Mister Scheller."

He let himself think that there might be other factors at work, but he was not particularly interested in dwelling on the state of Abe's marriage. He took a moment to process the rest of her statement, and then he closed his eyes and shook his head again. "Look, he had a choice," Norm replied with a scoff. "If he wanted to be with his family so much, he should have turned down the assignment."

"And if you wanted so much sympathy for coming home to next-to-nothing, you could have done the same."

"That hurts," he said flatly.

"But it's not wrong."

He let out an exasperated sigh and stood up from the bed. "Look, I can only feel so sorry for the man," he said. "He knew the kinds of people he was defending, he knew what was going on up there, and he knew the kind of life he was giving up to go make things right – or right in _his_ mind, anyway."

"And he failed. Is there anything about Abe which strikes you as someone who's accustomed to failing?"

Norm was quiet for a moment, waiting for her to expand on the thought. When Amy did not, he said simply, "I don't see where you're going with this."

"Abe gave up his comfortable life to go do something consequential," she said, "and he failed. There are basically two kinds of people – those who can accept failure and move on, and those who can't. Abe, I'm pretty sure, can't."

He shrugged. "Again, I'm not too sympathetic."

"On top of that," she continued, brushing off his comment, "he came home to find that everything he was counting on to be familiar had not only changed, but for the worse."

"So have I!" he shouted. "But I shouldn't expect sympathy for it?"

"I'm not taking sides, Norm," she replied. "All I'm saying is that if you're going to judge him, you should at least make the attempt to see things from his perspective – which I think is easier for you to do than you want to believe."

He wanted to respond with the first thing that came to his mind, and which certainly would not go over well with Amy. However, he took a moment to think about what she said, and soon found that his anger gave way to confusion. Norm's confusion gave way to a deep uneasiness that turned his stomach.

"All right," he said after taking a deep breath. "Let's say I _can_ empathize with Abe. That doesn't mean I have to agree with him."

"Absolutely not," she said, raising her hands in an agreeing gesture. "You don't even have to like him."

"So then what's the point of empathizing with him?"

"Because unless you want to take your chances flying solo, you're going to have to work with him for at least another two days," she said. "And it will make working with him easier if you can recognize that you two have at least that much in common."

Norm hesitated to acknowledge her lesson, and then he asked, "You're stealing this from your mom, aren't you?"

Amy smiled and replied, "Her line was, 'You're brothers, whether you like it or not. You're just making him bleed your own blood. Now get your asses in your room and think about how stupid you've been.'"

He chuckled. "I think I like yours better."

"Mom didn't fuck around too much," she replied with a grin.

Norm sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his eyes. "I still don't like him," he said.

"That's fine," she said with a slight laugh, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Two more days, and you'll never have to see him again."

It was the most comforting thing she said all evening.

* * *

The first thing he did when he returned to his hammock was discard the pack he had been forced to wear through most of the day; and he furiously scratched at the places around his face where the mask had irritated his skin.

Too much of today escaped his understanding. From the disturbed man who had ranted in a terrifying, dream-like state, to the woman who seemed to relish the abuses handed down on Norm and T'ngyute, to the seemingly spontaneous fight between the same, Tseyo felt like a confused spectator – a child watching his first ceremonial dance without being told its meaning.

He was sure his teacher would be able to explain it to him, but he doubted much that any explanation would make him comfortable with the events which transpired. He had had enough time to form his own opinions during the travel home. He would be just as happy to be kept in the dark and return to far simpler pursuits.

Once Tseyo was satisfied that the traces of the most physical reminder that he was on an alien world were gone from him, he looked for the tools of his craft – and was worried when he could not find them right away. It was not like him to misplace things; and in this case, there were not many places where he could have carelessly discarded his tools. His hammock was clear, as was the floor around it. The line Tseyo had strung above his hammock to store the various items he had brought with him was also as he remembered it from this morning.

His suspicions about the cause of his missing items were confirmed when Natalie said, "Sorry, I had to move your stuff into my space. Vertex was getting nosey."

Tseyo turned just as Natalie stepped off the last stair and headed for her room. Following in behind her – crouching to pass through the doorway – he took a moment to survey the contents of her space, which until now he had only seen in passing when Norm took him to the adjacent washroom.

Though its design, an uninspired block, was alien to him, he immediately recognized the bed and its purpose. He reached out to rub the red fabric which covered the bed between his thumb and forefinger, and was surprised by how soft it felt. Whatever threads were used in its creation, the advanced weaving meant Tseyo was unable to discern individual strands.

Further indulging his curiosity, Tseyo firmly put his hand down onto the bed, and was further surprised when it readily sank into the material. He had expected it to be hard, fitting to its rigid form. He tried his hand again, less aggressively, to be sure his eyes had not tricked him, and this time he welcomed the result.

Across from the bed, Tseyo noted an assortment of tall and short metallic figurines, above which were hung various ribbons and medallions. He reached out and picked up one of the smaller, golden figurines, which was fastened to a block of white stone that he did not recognize. However, Tseyo did recognize the figurine's pose: a person in mid-swim.

He saw that, in addition to the medallions and ribbons, there was an assortment of pictures of Natalie as she was swimming. Tseyo was not surprised when Natalie came to his side, clearly aware that he had become less concerned with his own belongings as much as hers, and explained for him, "These are from before I became sick again."

"Your people must respect you very much," he replied, "to go through the trouble to make all of this for you."

Natalie let out a short laugh and said, "Maybe they did, but not anymore – not since I stopped competing."

"Competing for what?"

"For these," she replied, indicating the statuettes and ribbons. Her tone was almost mystified, as though she were surprised that he did not pick up on her meaning. "Don't Na'vi use games to compete for honors?"

He started to shake his head, but then he balked. "The games aren't there to bestow honors," he said. "But sometimes if you play well or hunt well, then someone might make you a trinket or give you an extra cut of meat out of respect. But, no, we don't play games with honors in mind."

Natalie nodded slowly. "Well, my people do," she said. "Every so often, the best players from all the tribes on Earth will gather to compete for honors and respect. When I was young, and still very sick, I had two ambitions. One of them was to be the best swimmer of all the tribes. But after I became sick again, no matter how much I practiced, I knew I wouldn't be strong enough to go that far."

Tseyo returned the figurine to its original display, and then sat down before her. He took her hands in his and said, "You can't measure strength with trinkets, Natalie. They're just _things_."

"I know," she replied. "But even so, sometimes it just feels good to be recognized. There are so many people—," her voice trailed off. She shook her head and continued, "There are so many people, it's too easy to feel like if you're not being recognized, then you're as meaningful as a shadow." Natalie looked him in the eyes and asked, "Does that make sense?"

Like with all Na'vi, being honest was as instinctual as hunting. However, in this case, he felt compelled to be honest. He shook his head and said, "No, Natalie it doesn't. Life is about how you connect with people. If you're concerned about how they regard you, you should make the effort to connect with them."

Natalie looked down. "You think I'm shallow?"

"No," he replied, bringing one hand under her chin to tilt her head up again. "I see you as a person with great compassion." He smiled and said, "And somehow I think that compassion is where you based your second ambition."

She laughed and replied, "We already talked about that one."

Tseyo's smile broadened. "Na'vi tails?"

"Yes," she said with a nod, becoming flush for a brief moment. Then her voice became more sober as she said, "I really wanted to travel to your world."

"But not anymore?"

Natalie took a deep breath. "I don't think I'd be welcome, now that I know what's happened to you."

He frowned, but replied, "Like I said to you the night we first spoke, if your people sent many eights who were like you, and not the gun warriors, we would welcome you with open arms."

"I wish we had."

They were quiet for a few moments, and then he said, "Natalie, I have to know what I did last night to upset you. Even through all the strangeness of today," he was making an effort to understate the fact, "it weighed on my mind."

"You didn't do anything wrong," she replied quickly, confidently, but she seemed hesitant to go further than that statement.

"Then what was it?"

Natalie looked away for a moment, and then said, "I let myself forget it was just a dream world." Tseyo furrowed his brow as he tried to discern the heart of her message. When it became apparent that he did not understand, she continued, "When you and I danced close together, after everything else that night—." Natalie became flush again and bit down on her lower lip. "Please don't make me say it, Tseyo."

He had a moment of clarity, and she did not need to go into further details. "You were courting me?"

"No!" she said so emphatically that he was taken aback. "I wanted you to see that my people weren't so heartless," she continued, "that we appreciate art and music and happiness. But then, for a moment, I let myself believe that you were someone you aren't – and then I panicked when I thought about what you must have been thinking."

"I was happy to be in your company," he replied. "But, Natalie, courtship would be—," he took a deep breath, unsure of how to finish his thought politely.

"It would be wrong," she said, stating bluntly what he had wanted to dance around. "I know that." Natalie repeated, "I _know_ that. I've been telling myself that all day, but it's been a stubborn thought."

Tseyo put his hands on her cheeks, and she was quick to put her hands over his. He smiled, but he maintained a serious tone as he spoke. "Natalie, if you were Na'vi, I'd consider myself very lucky to be your suitor. But you are not Na'vi, and I'm going home after I do this thing for my people. You _must_ get over your thoughts."

"I know," she replied quietly, making half-hearted attempts to avoid eye contact with him.

He took another breath, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead, a customary send-off for a potential mate who, through Eywa's intervention or a more instinctual failure to connect, one might discover was not a good match with his or her heart. To be polite, he let the kiss linger for a few moments longer than might have been appropriate or customary; but as Natalie's hand moved from his hands to his forearms, he could tell she was not quite ready to let him go.

Tseyo was pulling away from her, hoping to be able to talk her into walking away, when she tilted her head up towards him. Whether by accident or her design, their lips brushed. Against his better judgment, or out of a passing moment of curiosity, he leaned in once more to kiss her.

Their bodies did not quite match – he found her nose in particular to be distracting, and it seemed to him that his lips might be too rough against her soft skin – but the experience was not as unpleasant as he might have imagined it. If Natalie was harboring any reservations, she was hiding them well. Her hands were quick to fall on his cheeks, keeping them locked together; and it seemed to him that even if he mustered all his strength, it would not be enough to break away from her.

Tseyo relented. If this is what it was going to take to dispel her of pursuing false dreams, to keep her from falling out of balance, he was willing to oblige. However, when he made the decision to let his guard down, his mind was quick to recall the last night he shared with Naw'ngié.

Though their devotion to _tsahik_'s command had prevented them from violating any deeply held customs of the people, they were not entirely innocent. Their proximity combined with the still warm embers of their abandoned courtship and led them to do a bit more than simply enjoy each other's company in his hammock. Whomever she was mated with now would be very disappointed if he knew that whatever caresses she let him indulge in would not have been the first over her body.

As such, Tseyo did not take particular notice when Natalie's hands wandered over his chest, or mind much that his own had fallen to her hips. It was only when he felt the outside of her foot brush against the inside of his thigh, her toes tugging at his loincloth, that his mind regained its focus. He hastily broke their embrace, perhaps to her shock as much as his.

Since he was not innocent in letting his kind intentions become a much deeper expression of mutual attraction, he could not be angry at her for the transgression. However, he took a deep breath and said firmly, "We must stop this."

Natalie slowly withdrew her hands from him and nodded her head. "Yeah," she replied. "That's probably a good idea."

Tseyo looked past her and spotted his belongings carefully laid out on a level beam near the doorway. He stood, gathered them, and stepped back into the main room to go to his hammock. As he settled in for the night, Natalie looked out from her room and said, "Tseyo?"

"Yes?"

She took a breath. "Thank you." He was not entirely sure what she was thanking him for, but he politely nodded all the same. She offered him a weak smile in response, and then slowly closed the door.

Tseyo distracted his thoughts by resuming his craft from the morning, crushing the dried leaves to be used as pigments, but the tedious task did less to calm him than to bore him to sleep. Either that or it was the world's air catching up with him that made him lightheaded. Out of concern for the latter, he reluctantly reequipped himself with the pack and mask before curling up in his hammock to sleep.

Not long after his eyes closed, Tseyo was at the mercy of fitful dreams.


	19. Breach of Trust, Part I

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N - Still making my updates from a Home Depot parking lot. I have a week-long vacation coming up soon, though, so hopefully that'll help things. How is it already August?

* * *

"What can you tell me?" Franklin demanded.

"That it's too early," she replied from her bed to the videophone on the bedside table.

"It's barely after five," he said. "And I have to have my briefing ready by eight."

Jude yawned, turned over into her pillow, and said, "That's not what I meant. I meant it's too early for me to give you anything actionable."

He sounded incredulous. "You've had a full day, and you haven't produced any results? For what we're paying you…"

"Respectfully," she interrupted, most of her head still buried in her pillow, "you had two full days before I showed up and have as much to show for it. If I don't have anything by Wednesday morning, consider me behind the power curve."

"I can't go in front of RDA's corporate leadership and say, 'Our asset spent all of her first day on the job in bed!'"

"Of course not. That would make you a liar," she replied.

"Then give me something."

She groaned, yawned again, and sat upright. "I have access to the target's assumed base of operations, and I have a pretty good idea of how I can set up remote surveillance. That will be taken care of this afternoon. After that, you're just going to have to be patient."

"Patience isn't one of the chairman's virtues," he said sternly.

"Well, that sucks for him, because it's one of mine. I already told you that I wasn't going to rush through this job. Do you want it done _right_, or do you want it done quickly?"

"_Again_," he pointedly began, "for what you're being paid, and from your reputation, I expected we would get both."

Jude shrugged. "Every assignment is different. If your dossier on me is as pathetic as it was on the target, I'm going to guess you don't know how long it's taken me to package up some of your other problems." She snorted. "Hell, I've done multiple jobs at the same time because of the time some of them have taken to resolve."

"We don't have a lot of time, so I suggest you move with a little more urgency."

"You don't know how much time you have, _period_," she fired back. "That's why you hired me, and that's what I aim to find out."

The RDA executive sighed and said, "I'll be calling you this evening."

"I'll be waiting by the phone on pins and needles." When he hung up, she walked over to the dining table that was occupied by her surveillance equipment and, as of last night, discarded boxes of carryout. She may have been able to get room service from the hotel's Michelin-rated restaurant, but the fewer people who came up to her suite, the better.

Jude had used the video captured by her sunglasses to generate a three-dimensional rendering of the Schellers' property and its surroundings. The images were not the highest quality, but she could still discern some of the security features that might have eluded less skilled investigators. Certainly the doors were alarmed – not that she needed pictures to tell her that – and one luckily sharp image confirmed for her that the ground-floor windows were protected by sensors that were not part of any standard home security package.

Another feature which jumped out at her was that the curtains were drawn on all the windows, despite the fact that the house was oriented to make the most use of natural light. Given that they already lived in a gated, patrolled community, their decision to close up the house only made their activities more obvious to her, even if a passing neighbor might not notice.

The other thing she was sure of was that the glass they had installed was coated in such a way to deflect most personal-use listening devices. Certainly if Jude rented a communications van and parked it outside the house, she would be able to hear inside; but she was sure that would raise alarms within the house.

Fortunately for Jude, Robert had gone on at great length to detail the Schellers' primary security vulnerability – whether or not he knew it.

She showered and dressed, then headed to the hotel lobby. Despite being early in the morning, there were already businessmen and women, almost certainly executives of international corporations, milling about with their electronic devices. Jude made a quick assessment of the lobby to see who might be too out of place for her comfort, but other than some executives who appeared to be starting their workweek off on a sour note, she did not detect any threats.

Jude grabbed some fruit from the continental breakfast the hotel had laid out, and then was greeted by the short, elderly concierge as she headed for the door. "How are you this morning, Miss?"

"I'm doing well," she said with a smile and polite nod. "Now, I know you were here when I came in last evening. Don't tell me you sleep at your post."

He chuckled and replied, "No, Miss, but sometimes it can get that busy. My shift is five-to-seven most days, otherwise." He was too polite, by his nature or his job, to point out that a mandatory, fourteen-hour shift was hardly legal; but if pressed on it, Jude was sure he'd say he volunteered those hours or was compensated with overtime. They would be obvious lies. However, as his managers were nearby, Jude did not fault him for quickly changing topics. "Did you take my advice from yesterday afternoon?"

"Yes, thank you," she replied. "You were spot on. In fact, I have a tee time in about an hour."

"Do you need help bringing down your things?"

"No, they're already in my vehicle." She handed the concierge her parking ticket, and he quickly summoned a valet to retrieve her car.

"It's good you're getting in an early time," he said. "It looks like we'll be back to code red this afternoon." Jude was sure there was a time when people were more concerned with whether or not it would be sunny or rainy, hot or cold, not whether or not they would be able to breathe. Those days struck her as quaint.

"Well, here's hoping my exopack doesn't throw off my swing, then."

"Stay balanced, keep your arm straight, and make a slow, even swing through the ball," he advised in a grandfatherly way. He smiled and added, "The IPGC will be falling over itself to recruit you in no time."

She laughed politely. "Thank you, Ben. I'll keep that in mind."

Her vehicle pulled up out front, and she gave the concierge a few dollars before heading outside. The heat was already picking up, confirming the elderly man's forecast, but it was far from uncomfortable. The young valet who helped her into her car let his hand slip as she settled into the seat; and though she gave him a cross look for it, she thought that tonight, perhaps, she might indulge in some room service.

* * *

Krysta was awake before he was. Abe rubbed his eyes and looked towards the bathroom door, from which he could hear the shower running. They almost always took their showers together – as he would put it, to help California achieve its water conservation targets.

He turned over and checked the clock on the end table to see if he had overslept, but that was not the case. It was barely past six. He placed his hand over the sheets where Krysta had slept, and found that the residual heat from her body had already dissipated.

Abe sighed and sank back into the pillows. He had hoped that a decent sleep might help him overcome his growing anxieties, but his mind wasted no time cycling through the many to-dos of the coming day, playing out scenarios and projecting problems. His headache had also seemed to have become permanent, a symptom of his mind overclocking, though the worst of it only came in waves.

He realized, with a groan, that had a restorative sleep had been too much to hope for.

The shower cut off, and Abe sat up once Krysta emerged from the bathroom, towel wrapped about her. "Good morning," he said, barely earnest.

"Good morning," she curtly responded as she opened her dresser's drawers, not at all pausing her routine for his sake.

"Do you have something going on today?"

She kept her towel on as she slid into her undergarments. "I have client meetings in the city all day," she replied. "Two this morning, and one in the afternoon."

He let out a short laugh and said, "That seems to minimize the 'at home' part of the 'at home business' model."

"Well, you can't always do a security assessment from a tablet on the dining room table," she replied flatly, dropping the towel and turning her back to him as she donned her bra.

Abe frowned. "Since we've got another day, I was wondering if, maybe, you'd be up for calling off your meetings."

"And do what?" she asked pointedly. "Grab brunch at a park-side bistro, take in a movie, walk through the shopping district in the evening, then come home and fuck before you head off on your suicide mission?"

"We could always have sex before going to the bistro," he said less cordially, "if that'd be better for your schedule."

Krysta shook her head and sat on the end of the bed while she put on her suit. "One of us has to keep up some semblance of normalcy, Abe. Since you're so hell-bent on shattering it, I guess that means it's on me."

Abe pulled off his covers and sat next to her. "I'm not hell-bent on anything except making all of this right again."

"I don't think you're in a position to argue what's right and what isn't."

She stood from the bed, and he followed, becoming agitated by her many brush-offs. "So then tell me what I'm doing wrong. What am I doing any differently now than what I've done before?"

"For starters, you're being reckless."

"I admit that I'm taking some risks," he said flatly. "But given the circumstances…"

Krysta interrupted him by slamming her hand down on the dresser. She turned to him and said, "You're being _reckless_! You've gone forward on some half-baked plans before, but when are you going to admit that _nothing_ about this plan of yours has worked so far?" She rattled off on her fingers, "Your people are unprepared, you don't have the right intelligence, your so-called allies unreliable nutjobs, and you have no endgame."

"So that just means we have to adapt."

"You're not adapting, Abe! You're compromising. You're—," she let out an exasperated sigh. "You're jumping from one idea to the next, trying to grab on to everything that comes at you without letting anything go."

Abe responded with his own exasperation. "If you have any genius solutions, Babe, I'd love to hear them right about now."

"I already told you!" she shouted. "Call this stupidity _off_."

"I'm just supposed to ignore what Savage did to you? Is that what you want?"

Krysta shook her head. "That's the other thing, Abe. When the fuck did you become so _petty_?"

He raised his eyebrows. "'Petty?'"

"Yes, 'petty,'" she enunciated. "Natalie and I survived Savage's onslaught, thank you very much, so quit feeding me your bullshit about how you feel the need to get back at him on our behalf. This is about how he tried to set you up, and you know it."

Abe felt like a breeze could knock him over. "I expected to come back here to find you and Natalie completely under his heel, and you're telling me I shouldn't have even bothered to care?"

"I'm telling you that if you want to 'adapt,' then start by realizing that we're _fine_."

"Fine," he said, throwing up his hands. "You're _fine_. So what am I supposed to do? Give Tseyo over to Tom's labrats as a peace offering to RDA, send everyone home, and just hope this all blows over?"

"Do you have a problem with that?" Abe's eyes widened in disbelief, which only seemed to make her more agitated. "Abe, there are only two people in this house you're supposed to care about right now: me and your daughter. The rest of these people – the _alien_ – who are they?"

"We went through a lot on Pandora, and I…"

"No!" she shouted. "Don't you _dare_ try and speak down to me like that! Not unless you've truly diluted yourself. You hired them for a job, and now you're using them to settle your own score with Savage. You know full well that you're going to drop them like deadweight when this is over, so why not go ahead and drop them now?"

"Why are you so insistent that this is only about me and Savage?" he barked. "So what that you and Natalie 'survived?' You know, I think _you're_ the one who's changed in all of this."

She scoffed and crossed her arms. "Real amateur, Abe. But okay, go ahead and project onto me. How have I changed?"

"Before I left, you would have been gung-ho for this," he said. "You would _never_ have just 'survived' something like this. But now you want to bury your head in the sand and hope everything will work out. That may work for you, but it's not how I do things."

"How you've behaved since you got back isn't even _close_ to normal for you, Abe. I would gladly let you go and kick Savage's ass if I had any confidence that you'd actually pull it off – more importantly, if I thought I'd see you again afterwards."

"You know what isn't helping me right now? Having everyone call me crazy and suicidal."

"What isn't helping is that you aren't listening to them," she fired back. "But hey, you've got something to prove, right? Why bother with what they think, or what I think, or what Natalie thinks? It's all about you."

"Maybe because I'm the only person in the room who knows what he's doing."

"You're right, Abe. Nobody else has a clue what the fuck is going on in your head," she said, storming past him for the door.

"How about a headache for starters?" he shouted after her, but she slammed the door before he could finish the retort.

Abe had no desire to let the conversation end like that. He hastily threw on his shirt and pants from the day before and followed after her, quickly descending the stairs and heading for the garage. He readied himself to have to sprint after her as she began to drive away. When he opened the door, however, he did not see a car moments away from pulling out. Krysta had not even started the engine.

When he approached the driver-side door, he saw Krysta sitting slumped over the steering wheel with her face in her hands. Despite whatever luxury sound-suppression technology had been built into the minivan, he could hear her sobbing from the other side of the glass.

Abe took a deep breath and cautiously opened the door. He put a hand on her shoulder and knelt down beside her. "Hey," he said. "Look at me."

"I can't," she said between sobs.

"Please."

"I've spent eleven years, Abe – _eleven_ years – wishing I had stopped you from going to that godforsaken rock," she explained. "I even started praying again, just wanting you to come home. Now you're here, with one of _them_, and all you can do is focus on saving that damned planet!"

"Krysta—," he began with a sigh. "If someone told me that letting the Na'vi be driven to extinction would mean I could have my life back with you, back like it was, I'd gladly sit back and let it happen. Hell, I'd buy a telescope to watch it. All I want at the end of this is to live out my life with you and Natalie."

"So just do it," she pleaded, finally pulling her head out from her hands. "Just let it _go_, Abe. Come back to us."

"I can't." Before she could start up her line of attack again, he put a hand on her knee and said, "Okay, you were right. I'm not really all that angry about what Savage did to you and Natalie. I am, but not completely. I'm angry that he suckered me away from you two in the first place."

"Nobody's suckering you this time," she said. "This isn't your job. Doing this won't make you a better husband or father."

"Maybe you and Natalie have come out of Savage's wrath in one piece, but I haven't – not yet. And I don't consider it living if I'm always looking over my shoulder." He lowered his head and took a breath. "It is about me, all right? I admit it."

"I don't care about that," she said. "I care that if you screw up, you'll do more than just hurt yourself. Don't you see that?"

"I do!" he insisted. "I do, but I can't ignore this. I don't know how to turn my back on something like this." When it did not appear as though she were going to respond, he took her hands and said, "Tell me what to do, Krysta."

"Abe..."

"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. If you want me to call this off..."

"Abe, stop it!" she commanded, shaking off his hands. "Don't beg to me. You have to decide for yourself. Do you want _us_, or do you want _this_?"

He wanted to insist on a resolution, but he could tell that he was not going to get anything more from her. Eleven years may have grayed her hair, but it did not dim the fire in her eyes; and she projected it to its fullest effect. He looked away from her, slowly stood, and casually closed the door for her. Abe walked back into the house as she started the car, and was at the stairs by the time she pulled away.

The weight of a thousand thoughts caught up with him, however, and he did not make it halfway up the flight before he felt weakness in his knees. For all his scheming, it had never occurred to him that he would lose the ally whose support mattered most to him. There was little else which seemed to matter after that.

Abe leaned his head against the railing, put a hand on his forehead in an attempt to calm its throbbing, and hoped that it was still early enough in the morning that the rest of the house would not hear him cry into his hands.

* * *

"Good morning, Doctor Walsh," his assistant said. "How was your weekend?"

"Not much different than any other consecutive sequence of days," Tom replied. The concept of a workless weekend was absolutely foreign to him. There had not been a weekend in the last thirty years where he had not worked. Regardless, Emily had asked him the same question every Monday morning for the last three years. If he had not personally reviewed her credentials before hiring her, he would have thought human resources had saddled him with a dimwit.

Emily also always had the same, cheery response. "Well, maybe soon you'll get a weekend off."

To which he would inquire, "Are you suggesting I'll die on a Friday?"

She grinned and replied, "'No one knows when that day or hour will come – not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.'" Emily was not a Believer. She just knew that quote drove him nuts.

"One day we'll fold space-time," he said, "and when we do, I hope we get to see the look on dear old Dad's face."

"If it looks anything like yours, Doctor, I think we'll have the best argument yet of keeping space-time unfolded." He gave her a cross look, but she did not provide any kind of defense. Instead, she smiled and said, "Remember, the Board meeting is in a half hour."

"I know," he said. "Same as it's always been. What do I have _after_ that?"

"An update from Doctor Fairmont on Project Seven-Sixteen, then the research proposals board meeting at eleven."

"So after my morning meeting, I have more meetings."

"Correct."

"And you wonder why I have to get work done on weekends." He walked into his office before she could respond. "Thank you, Emily."

He sat down at his desk and activated the three screens in front of him. The central screen contained the programs he needed to conduct his work – or, as the day was falling together, issue orders in between meetings. To its left and right, he was receiving constant data streams from RDA's research stations around the globe. Every progress report, money transfer, and authorization for a new phase of experimentation came through to him.

It was not that he had the capability to keep track of every datum of information, but that he was expected to. Every so often, the chairman would call down to ask for an update on some obscure project that someone, somehow, had told him was either going awry or was of critical importance; and Tom was expected to pull that information up immediately.

In the meantime, his projects would go forward in fits and starts. The only one he could keep on the chairman's radar was his wormhole research; but now there were so many collaborators, it seemed like he was less in charge of the science and more in charge of managing personalities.

Tom pulled up his morning messages, which included the agenda for the chairman's meeting at the top of the hour. The first line read, "0800: Assessment of Efforts to Prevent Wide Distribution of Unauthorized Data Release – Dir. AMIS."

He knew when Krysta called him Saturday morning that she was not asking for a typical social call. They had never scheduled anything more than two weeks out, given the demands of their lives. He was thrown for a loop, however, when Abe produced a live Na'vi specimen. Had his heart not been almost totally reconstructed through genetic therapies, he might have keeled over from a heart attack. Knowing how much money had gone in to making the first avatar body, he could only imagine what the cost had to have been in order to convince Abe that it would be worthwhile to cajole a living Na'vi to come to Earth.

However, whatever talents Abe had used to bring the Na'vi to Earth had failed to convince Tom to be a willing co-conspirator. Even if he was relegated to managing personnel in the pursuit of research, he still had great sway in determining what projects went forward and what he could determine needed to be killed off. If that meant he never set foot in a lab to do hands-on work, he could accept it. It was also helpful that his legacy was strong enough to attract the researchers necessary to produce results faster than any other research conglomerate.

Still, there was one request which Tom was less able to refuse: that of continuing to watch over Abe's family. As his own son, his only child, had turned out to be such a disappointment to him – in no more way than in how he treated Krysta over the course of their brief marriage – it was his main source of pleasure to be able to help Natalie grow up, and to guide her interest in science. It would have been unconscionable for him to refuse such a request.

He reached into his suitcase and withdrew the storage device Abe had given him after their dinner on Saturday night. Tom was sure Abe knew full well that he would not refuse such an offer, and so would have manipulated the storage device to be a kind of Trojan horse. However, his scans at his home terminal had not resulted in any hits; and so he began the installation process shortly before departing for the Board meeting with Chairman Savage.

What Tom was not aware of, however, was that the carrier virus Abe had Dawn engineer on the chip would not activate until it detected an authentic, unfiltered RDA security key.

As Tom synched the storage device with his terminal and began to download the genuine financial information Abe had given him to keep safe, the underlying program began to search for access ports. Once identified, the program waited for users to input valid identification keys, which the program then transmitted back to Dawn, filtered through a worldwide network of servers which Dawn had spent most of the weekend hijacking and burying the code necessary to receive and forward the data mined by her program. This same network would also provide her with a formidable botnet to launch a diversionary cyberattack on RDA.

In addition to logging Tom's access information upon its download, in the half hour it took Franklin Ashworth to read the rest of RDA's leadership in on Abe's case, and outline the ways they planned to keep him contained, seventeen researchers with tier-one security access sent data feeds to Tom's terminal – all of their identification logged and reported by the program. By the end of the day, Abe would have four-hundred thirty-one top-tier security identifications.

Despite his refusal, Abe had made Tom a material partner in his scheme.

* * *

Norm grabbed Tseyo's shoulder to wake him up. "I've got breakfast for you," he said as Tseyo began to stir. He sat up in his hammock and, with a slight, still-sleepy nod, took the food packet from Norm.

"We're almost out of the fruit you brought with you," Norm said. "I hate to say it, but soon you're going to have to return to the food rations from your training."

"Why can't I have any of the cooking you prepare in the evenings?" Tseyo asked as he manipulated the straw in his mask.

Norm shrugged. "It's about the same," he replied. "You're not missing out on anything too great."

Tseyo frowned and consumed the processed fruit Norm had prepared.

As he did so, Norm took a breath and said, "Listen, with all the craziness of last night, I didn't get a chance to tell you thanks for looking out for me yesterday."

Tseyo shook his head and paused from his meal to say, "You needed the help, and I was happy to provide it."

"Yeah, but I realized late last night that I haven't exactly been the best teacher to you since we got here – or a friend. I'm sorry about that."

Again, Tseyo shook his head. "You've had a lot to do since coming here," he said. "I haven't minded. But, if I may ask a question—?"

"Sure."

He leaned forward, as if his question were somehow dangerous if spoken too loudly. "Why do you still follow T'ngyute?"

The question was not illicit, but it did give Norm pause. "I don't – I'm not _following_ him," he said. "It's just that he's better prepared to get all the things we need for this fight than I am."

"It doesn't seem like he's gotten anything," Tseyo replied. "All he's done is delay the battle and taken us to see crazy people."

"Tseyo, this isn't the kind of fight where two armies come together and do battle. There are a lot of small things that need to happen first." He paused and said, "Think of this more as hunting than fighting. First you have to track the animal, then stalk it, and then attack quickly."

He nodded along, but he did not seem too comforted by the analogy. "What is the battle going to look like, then?"

Norm was reluctant to describe it for Tseyo if only because he was not too sure of it himself. He offered, "We're going to go to the enemy's home, find their leader, and make him surrender his army – the army that's heading for your home."

Tseyo asked the question Norm knew was coming, but had hoped would not. "What if he doesn't surrender?"

"Then we will probably have to fight many more people," Norm replied. "And I don't think we're ready to do that."

"No, we aren't." He sighed, and then smiled. "At least your nose looks better."

"Thanks," he replied with a chuckle. The liquid bandaging had done wonders to reduce the swelling, but it was still plenty sore. Norm knew there was no quick fix for that, not unless he wanted to stroll into a hospital.

Natalie emerged from her room wearing a Berkeley t-shirt and gym shorts, and she looked surprised to see him. "Oh! Good morning, Doctor Spellman."

He grinned and said, "Really, you can call me Norm."

"Sorry," she said with a short laugh. "It kind of becomes a habit when you have too many professors."

"I understand," he replied. "It'll get worse after you go through a couple of dissertations." He raised an eyebrow and asked, "We didn't wake you, did we?"

She shook her head. "I need to put Vertex out. Besides, I didn't sleep well."

Norm nodded. "It was a rough night."

Natalie's laugh was short and nervous, and she just nodded her head. A moment later, she said, "Well, at least you're looking better."

"Thanks," he said with a grin. Natalie gave Tseyo a quick look and smile, and then she headed upstairs.

Norm watched her go, his gaze lingering on the stairs perhaps a moment longer than he ought to have, and then Tseyo asked, "Is she attractive to you?"

His heart skipped a beat and then returned with a quickened pulse. Norm quickly turned to look at Tseyo, and he asked, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Among your people," he said, either oblivious to the shock he had induced or skillfully covering his amusement. "Would she be a good mate?"

"Yeah, I guess," he responded after taking a breath. "She's pretty, smart, athletic – or was. I'm sure she's gotten plenty of guys' attention."

Tseyo nodded slowly. "Those are the qualities you look for?"

Norm's heart had begun to slow back to a normal pulse, but he was still nervous. He chuckled and said, "Tseyo, I'm not interested in her. For one, I'm too old…"

"I don't mean 'you,'" Tseyo interrupted. "I mean your people."

Norm could see Tseyo's tail moving to-and-fro like a nervous cat's would, and his inflection was higher than usual. Then there was his diction. Norm crossed his arms and said, "But you said, '_nga'_ instead of '_aynga_,' or '_pongu_.'"

"You must have misheard," Tseyo replied meekly. "Or I misspoke."

"I know I will never be able to speak the language as well as you," he said, "but I can hear it well."

Norm saw what looked like a pulse of light run the length of the freckles along Tseyo's arms, and he looked away from him. "Never mind," he said.

"Okay," Norm offered, not wanting to upset him. However, he was not willing to drop the subject entirely, and so he shifted his tactics. "You and she are getting along though, right?"

"Yes," Tseyo replied quickly. "She's been showing me your people's arts. It's been eye-opening." Norm allowed silence to linger between them, hoping Tseyo might volunteer more information. He did. "I just thought – because she has a very strong heart – she would have chosen a mate by now. I was curious why she might not have."

"What makes you curious about it?"

He shrugged and shook his head slightly. "It was just a thought."

Norm went in for the kill. "Do you want her as your mate?"

"No!" he said. "No, teacher, I don't. But—," he let out a heavy sigh. "But I think she wants me for a mate."

His pulse started to increase again. "What makes you think that?"

Tseyo looked down, frowned, and sighed again. "Because we kissed last night."

He almost fell over. "What?"

Despite his earlier assertion that he had a good ear for Na'vi, Tseyo's response was so quick, so rambling, that Norm almost missed it. "She said she had deep feelings for me, and I told her to get rid of them. But I didn't want to be rude, because she has been very nice, so I gave her a parting kiss – just as we do – but it went for too long. I think I may have confused her instead."

Norm brought a hand to his face, for a moment forgetting his nose's lingering pain. He had a terrifying vision of Abe walking in on his beloved daughter locking lips with the alien he had come to loathe. The vision ended with a lot of blood.

Natalie returned to the basement, and she might have casually returned to her room if not for his and Tseyo's obvious body language. She paused just outside her door and said, "He told you, didn't he?"

"Yeah," Norm replied, letting his hand fall back to his side. "Yeah, he did." He turned to her and asked, "What were you thinking?"

She winced under his gaze, and looked between him and Tseyo. "I – I don't think I was thinking."

"Is he right? Do you – Are you—?" it was a question that ought to be so preposterous that he had trouble phrasing, much less finishing it.

He did not have to. "Kind of," she quietly confessed. Then she very quickly added, "But I know – I guess I thought that maybe if I could get it out of my head, I wouldn't."

"And I'm going to guess that it didn't work." She shook her head.

Norm looked over at Tseyo, who just shrugged. He took a breath and said, "I need to talk with her privately." Tseyo nodded, and Norm walked with Natalie into her room. In case Tseyo was able to overhear them, even with the door closed, he dropped the Na'vi for their common language. "This isn't a joke you two are trying to play on me, is it?"

"No!"

"Natalie—," he found himself hopelessly unprepared for this conversation. "Natalie, I know Na'vi are very human-like, okay? Believe me, I know it. But I'm telling you this as an anthropologist, an avatar driver, and someone who just spent ten years living with them: they are _not_ human."

"I know that, I just…"

"I think you know it," he said, "but I don't think you _get_ it. Tseyo's mind is not wired to have these kinds of flings. He's looking for a lifelong mate, not an attractive, young woman to pass a few days with."

She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. "Excuse me?"

Norm continued through her reaction. "Whatever feelings you have for him, you've _got_ to kill them – or keep them to yourself. _Absolutely _to yourself."

"Doctor Spellman – Norm – I know this isn't right. I'm not a fetishist. I just—," she looked at the door and took a long breath. "I don't know. He was so sad the first night he was here, and then after that, we just got along really well. The more I was around him, the more comfortable I was..."

"Natalie, you've spent _a day_ with him."

"I know!" She wiped her eyes and said, "I don't want to hurt him, but I can't get over this."

Norm took a breath, followed by a long sigh. "Okay, you want to know what I think is going on here?"

"What?"

"I don't think you're in love with him," he said calmly. She looked about ready to object, but he held up a hand to stop her. "I think you've spent so much time idolizing the Na'vi," he continued, "you figured your friendship was automatic. When you saw Tseyo that first night – confused, sad, looking for some companionship – your instincts to reach out to him weren't wrong, but you went overboard. As he became comfortable with you, and you with him, you read too much into that. It's not genuine love, Natalie, it's almost like Nightingale Syndrome."

Natalie was quiet, mulling over what he said, and then she asked, "You don't think he could love me?"

"No," Norm replied flatly. "And even if he could, he's going _home_ after this is all over. He already gave up one mate to come here. It would be too traumatic for him to give up a second."

"He has a mate?"

"He was starting a courtship," he clarified. "Regardless, as far as Na'vi customs go, he's had a rocky love life. Its sheer wrongness aside, adding you into the mix would be too much for him."

She looked genuinely hurt, so he put his hands on her shoulders and said, "Listen, I _do_ think he looks at you as a friend. Frankly, given all he's been through with humans – his dad and sister's murders – it's an accomplishment that you were able to win his trust so quickly. If you were one of our avatar drivers, we'd all be impressed. But he is _never_ going to be more than a friend to you."

Natalie shook her head and walked away to sit on the edge of her bed. She rubbed her knees and said, "I feel so stupid." Her next breath was more of a sniffle. "I did the same thing with my last boyfriend, and then as soon as I got sick—," the sentence faded as she buried her face in her hands.

Norm sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. "I'm sorry, Natalie."

She turned to weep on his shoulder. He felt helpless to do much other than rub her back and allow her to let her emotions out. She cried for most of a minute before she was able to say, "Between the therapies, Mom working all the time so she could keep the house for Daddy, and my starting school, I never got a chance to get past him. Then I couldn't get someone to look at me without asking about my cane or my hair – I mean, it's not like cancer is contagious! But Tseyo looked beyond all of that and just treated me as a person." Natalie paused and added, "It made things feel normal."

"Na'vi are expert judges of character," Norm replied. He grinned and said, "Maybe when this is all over, before Tseyo goes home, you could take him to that jerk's house."

She managed a laugh as she sat up to wipe her eyes. "That'd be fun." Natalie looked at him and asked, "So what should I do? Should I apologize?"

He shook his head. "Just do your best to keep your distance. You have class today, right?" She nodded. "All right, well, maybe take your classes upstairs, and we'll all convene down here to do whatever your dad has in mind."

"You're not going to tell Daddy, are you?"

Norm laughed. "No, Natalie. I'm not going to tell anybody, least of all Abe." He snorted and added, "Not unless you really want to see instincts going overboard."

Natalie took a breath, looked down, and briefly bit her lower lip. "I know you don't like him," she said, "but he's a good man. When he was here, he was a good father to me. I can't say anything about what he did on Pandora, but I don't believe he meant to be evil."

He needed a few moments to put together his response, but he was finding it difficult to be both honest and sensitive. "I don't think your dad's 'evil,'" he began. "We just really, really disagree about what it means to be right."

"But you're both doing the right thing now," she replied. "So why should anything else matter?"

Once again, he paused to walk the fine line between candor and compassion. "It was a very long year on Pandora."

Natalie frowned, but slowly nodded her head. She wiped her eyes once again and said, "I think I should get cleaned up." She smiled at him and said, "Thank you."

He patted her on the shoulder, stood, and walked towards the door. Before he opened it, she asked, "With all the time you spent around them, did you ever find a Na'vi woman attractive?"

Norm hesitated to answer, but after a passing moment of introspection, he said, "They're not human, Natalie." She frowned but nodded, quietly accepting his answer.

He stepped out of her room, and not a half second after Norm closed the door behind him, Tseyo asked, "Were you kind to her?"

He nodded. "I did my best."

"But she understands?"

"Yeah," he said. "At least I hope so."


	20. Breach of Trust, Part II

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

The last few mornings, the Scheller house seemed alive with nervous energy – whether for better or for worse, Natalie tried not to think about. This morning, however, it felt thick with tension. She was willing to believe it had more to do with her own early hours than anything else, but the solemn way in which her father had gathered everyone in the basement made it appear to her as though they were starting to succumb under the pressure of waiting ever-longer for their plan to come to fruition.

Unlike Natalie's last school session, she was committed to preventing her mind from wandering too far into these concerns. Whether or not she would have come to realize on her own just how improper it was for her to take advantage of Tseyo's kindness, the fact that Norm had to pull her aside to set her straight – and that she had been unable to stand up to his interrogation – helped to focus her mind.

Halfway through her second class, however, her concentration was broken as one of the kitchen windows shattered, followed soon thereafter by one of the cabinet's glass panes and two plates therein. The surprise of it all caused her to yelp, although she soon regained her composure. Vertex began barking furiously from upstairs; and by the time she was in the kitchen to get a preliminary sense of the damage, her father had come upstairs. "Are you all right?" he asked, one hand behind his back, as though he were holding on to something.

"I'm fine, Daddy," she said.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure, yet." She followed the trail of destruction to the cabinet, and she reached behind a chipped glass. "It looks like a Title Nine."

Abe raised an eyebrow. "A golf ball?" Natalie nodded and held it out for him to see. "Those windows are supposed to be treated to resist golf balls."

She shrugged and pocketed the ball. "The contractor must have screwed you and Mom."

"Contractors always will," he replied with a grumble. "All right, it's not the end of the world, just…" he was interrupted by the phone ringing, and stepped around a corner while Natalie answered it.

"Scheller residence, this is Natalie."

It was the guardhouse. "Ma'am, we've received an alert to a possible break-and-enter. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, it was a golf ball through the window," she replied. "We're – I'm fine."

A keypad appeared on the screen. "Can you input your security code, please?" Natalie keyed in her birthmonth and her mother's birthyear in reverse, and the keypad disappeared. "Thank you, ma'am. Are you sure you don't need someone to come up?"

"Positive," Natalie said. "But if the golfer doesn't come forward, could you—?" she broke off her sentence as someone knocked on the house's backdoor. "Never mind, I think. Thanks for checking in. I'll call if we need help."

The guard nodded. "Have a good day, Miss," he said, and then the call terminated.

Natalie went to the backdoor and pulled back the curtain to see a woman in business casual attire standing there, sunglasses hanging from the front of her shirt, golf bag in tow. She offered a nervous smile and wave, and then Natalie unlocked the door. She cracked it open just far enough to be able to carry on a conversation. "You wouldn't happen to have found a Title Nine, would you?" the woman asked.

"Yeah," Natalie replied. "I hope you're playing with a large handicap."

The woman winced. "I'm so, so sorry. May I come in to see the damage?"

Natalie hesitated. Even under normal circumstances, strangers were not welcome in the Schellers' house; under these circumstances, the idea seemed even more absurd. Her strong instinct was to close the door and send the woman on her way, but then she worried that doing so might arouse more suspicions than not. After all, who would consider it normal to be turned away upon confessing to damage?

The best answer she received to her dilemma was when she heard the basement door close. Natalie sighed and said, "You'll need to take off your cleats, first."

"Of course."

Natalie looked around as the woman untied her shoes. "Where's the rest of your group?"

"Oh, I'm playing alone today," she replied. She laughed and added, "I'm trying to get in some much-needed practice before this weekend. You know, get a feel for the course _before_ I hold up the foursome."

"Maybe you should think about pushing your game back a couple more weekends," Natalie offered.

The woman kicked off her shoes, and Natalie stepped aside so she could enter. She turned towards the kitchen and winced again. "I got the cabinet, too?"

"If it'd gone in one of the glasses, I'd let you mark it on your card as a hole in one."

"Five," the woman corrected.

Natalie looked at her with raised eyebrows. "That's a par four hole – and you have another hundred yards to go."

She sighed. "Like I said—," she said with outstretched palms.

Natalie took pity on her and – somewhat – changed the subject. "Yeah, so, I guess we should exchange information."

"Oh, must we?"

Her question made Natalie feel uneasy. "Um, yeah. How else are we going to get you to pay for this?"

"Well, surely we could settle this like adults," she said as she reached into her pocket. Natalie was not sure why she felt panicked – maybe it was the woman's tone of voice – but she was ready to yell for her father at a moment's notice. It was not necessary, however, as the woman withdrew a checkbook. "What would you say this amounts to? Six, seven hundred?"

After taking a moment to regain her composure, Natalie replied, "My mom would kill me if I took money from someone who damaged the house without getting an estimate. I mean, yeah, _I_ might say it's seven hundred, but maybe we can't get a contractor for less than a thousand – and then we have no way to call you to make up the difference."

The woman gave her a wry grin and said, "Well, aren't you a savvy young lady?"

Natalie felt a tinge of pride. "Mom runs her own business," she replied. "So, yeah. I've learned a couple of things."

The let out an unnecessarily deep sigh as she put checkbook away and said, "All right, let's exchange information." She pulled out a touch-screen phone while Natalie recovered her tablet from the couch and made the exchange. Afterwards, the woman, Bethany Adams, said, "So I should expect to hear from you in a couple of days?"

"Probably."

Bethany nodded. "Well, sorry again. I hope it's not too much to repair."

She walked out of the house, but Natalie caught up with her as she put her cleats back on. She took the errant golf ball from her pocket and said, "You know, this isn't regulation weight. It's a lot heavier."

"How would you know that?" Bethany asked.

"Because I live on a golf course," Natalie responded slowly.

"Ah," she said. "Well, as you've seen, I'm not very good. It's a training ball – heavier and smaller."

Natalie casually lobbed it at a high arc for Bethany to catch, and then offered, "Maybe consider another sport."

"Thanks," she said dryly, and then Natalie closed the door.

As Natalie set about sweeping up the broken glass, her father emerged from the basement. "Did she leave anything behind?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"That woman. Did she leave anything behind?"

"No. I got her information, and she left."

"Was she ever out of your sight?" he asked, his tone insisting an answer. "Did she touch anything?"

Natalie let out a short laugh. "Dad, what's wrong with you?"

"You can't just let people in here, Natalie," he said sternly.

"So what was I supposed to do, Daddy?" She said mockingly, "Tell her, 'Oh, hey, it's totally cool you broke our window. Have a nice day!'"

"I'm sure she'd figure we were well off enough to not get flustered over a window."

"Well we're not!" Natalie shot back as she stood up from the floor. "So I'm sorry that it didn't occur to me to play it like that. I'm not some awesome spy like you or Mom – or whatever it is you are."

Abe held his hands out, palms forward, in front of his chest. "Okay, I'm sorry," he offered. "We just can't afford mistakes at this stage, that's all I'm worried about."

"If she were one of RDA's goons," she asked pointedly, "why would she smash our window and leave? Why not just come in here and start shooting?"

"That's not—," he sighed and stopped himself before going further. "Among other things, it's a way to see if anybody's home. 'Innocently' smash a window, check to see if someone comes to the door. If not, you enter."

"Well, that's a stupid plan, because I was home." Natalie took a deep breath and said, "She didn't whip out a secret spy camera, or ask me about our daily routines, or slip me some truth serum. She was a shitty golfer who smashed our window and wanted to get off easy, okay?"

He did not appear at all convinced, but he also did not appear at all willing to make a fight out of it. "All right," he said. "Do you need help cleaning up?"

She shook her head. "No, thank you. I can take care of it – then I need to get back to class. I'll call Mom later and let her know."

"Okay," he said with a nod, and then he turned towards the basement. "Just be careful, that's all I'm asking."

Natalie waited for him to close the basement door, and then she quietly replied, "You too."

* * *

Abe had to see it for himself, but there was no denying that the route he had intended for them to take was severely flawed.

The team sat around the tabletop holoprojector, into which he had transferred the building's floorplans, and they did a floor-by-floor search of the best alternate route. Tseyo observed them from a distance; but when Norm and Dawn were unable to explain precisely in his language what it was that they were doing, he seemed to drift out of interest.

Abe followed their original route. "So you _can_ get up to the first mezzanine without a problem," Abe said. The others nodded.

Bay Point Tower, the pinnacle of RDA's headquarters campus, was on the outside a cragged, half-mile spire of steelwork. Within that frame, it was a glass-enclosed concrete spiral which was divided into four sections. The first section was a public mall which the public accessed from a tunnel access at the adjacent Union Square. However, the loading docks and underground maintenance were all RDA property; and ringing the mall were a number of employee-only entryways to access the rest of the building.

In order to prevent precisely the kind of security breach Abe and his team were planning, where someone might plan an infiltration from the loading bay, the freight elevators stopped one floor below the first mezzanine level – a garden which separated the top floors of the mall from the main office complex. From the freight elevators, they would have to cross through a checkpoint to access a bay of employee passenger elevators.

Abe's original plan had called for them to use the employee elevators to express up to the top levels of the tower. However, "Tseyo can fit if he crouches down," Matthew said. "But almost nobody else can fit in with him. Maybe Norm could. The rest of us would be sitting around waiting for the guards to pick us up."

On the other side of the floor were maintenance elevators. They were tall enough to accommodate Tseyo – if he leaned against the ceiling – and most of the team, but they started at the subbasement level, shared by both maintenance and one of four security barracks on the sprawling RDA complex.

"Okay," Abe said. "Let's assume you _do_ make it over there."

The second section of the spiral was reserved for RDA's lower administrative functions – clerks, auditors, and technical specialists. The maintenance elevator could take them through this level, but then would have to stop at the mezzanine as the spiral tapered inward.

"This is where the security program would usually have the guards come up and bust us," Luke said. "They'd just turn one of the maintenance elevators into an express elevator from the subbasement, and they'd be on top of us."

"How long would that take?"

"Five or six minutes," Luke replied with a shrug. "Assuming the guards at the loading dock trip the alarm as soon as we jump out of the van, which is a fair assumption."

"Okay, so let's say you're able to get there in four minutes and they don't get there for six," Abe said. "How long does it take you to get to maintenance A?"

The third floor, which housed RDA's mid-managers and program support offices, would allow the team to transfer to a dual maintenance-passenger elevator bay, which was in fact the tower's primary elevator bay. However, it was on the direct opposite side of the loading dock elevator bay.

"Less than a minute," Amy said. "But security would also use that one, so we were more likely to arrive there at the same moment they did than to get by them."

"What if you went to that elevator bay first and avoided the whole transfer to begin with?" Abe asked. "Did you try that."

"We tried it two ways," Matthew replied. "We tried it as soon as we left the loading bay's freight elevators, but there were too many guards at that level to punch through. Then we tried going through the basement, from the loading bay direct, but security was always right behind us."

"But did it work?"

Matthew shook his head. "We could get to the fourth section, yes, but security would always be in an adjacent elevator to unload right behind us. We could never get to the final elevator bay to meet up with you."

The tower's crown fourth section housed RDA's upper management. It was here that Abe would collect his old investigation records, and from there the group would go confront Savage at his penthouse on the top floor.

Abe took a deep breath, followed by a long sigh. "So in order for this to work, in addition to either sixty percent of the guards absent or all of them confused, you need a solid two minute space between your movements and the guards', am I right?"

They nodded, and he frowned.

"What about disabling the elevators we aren't using?" Norm asked. "I mean, it's a favorite tactic in the movies, and it would sure as hell slow them down."

"That's because it's a Hollywood myth," Abe replied. "The computers which run the tower's mechanics are completely compartmentalized. There's no way to access them either directly from the Internet, or indirectly through the employee servers. It's so no teenager can get his rocks off by tripping every sprinkler system in the building."

"That just means we can't hack them," Luke said. "There has to be a control station."

Abe nodded, and returned to the basement floors. Mapping the route with his finger, he said, "If you went from the loading dock along this corridor to get to the primary maintenance elevator, you would divert down this hallway, and the control room is here."

"Yeah, but we're never going to get in the control room and then out again to ride the elevators," Amy said. "Security would either trap us, or they'd reactivate the elevators behind us."

"So someone has to barricade themselves inside," Abe replied. "It would keep an element of security preoccupied while the rest make it upstairs."

"You're really into sacrificing us one at a time, aren't you?" Matthew asked with a wry grin.

"We don't even know if it'll work," Dawn said.

"That's the point of the virtualscape," Abe said, pulling up a display of the program's scripts. "Let's assume that the controls are intuitive for whomever does go in – or that you persuade whoever is in there to our cause. Dawn, write a script that will allow whomever is in the room total control over the elevator shafts if they're able to remain barricaded for forty-five seconds."

While she worked on that, Matthew said, "You still haven't said who that person's going to be. We're already losing one person in this prisoner transfer – also undecided – and I'm going to guess that whomever the Soldiers pair with you is not going to be a willing sacrifice."

"I think you're right, doctor." Abe frowned and said, "All right, here's the reality. Norm needs to be with Tseyo at all times. Dawn is going to be here to run our control and the cyberattack. So that leaves the Colonel, Luke, and yourself as either the possible trade or – let's say – the solo operator."

"I should be in the control room," Luke said. "I'm going to guess that I have the most mechanical experience of the three of us."

"I'd guess you're right," Abe replied. "So that just leaves the transfer." Amy and Matthew looked at each other, and after a few moments of silence, they both shook their heads and looked at Abe. He grinned and said, "I'm disappointed with your enthusiasm."

"It's hard to get fired up about being handed over to psychopaths," Amy replied.

"Someone has to go."

"Why?" she replied. "C'mon, Abe, you know what's going to happen. If we survive the mission, I really doubt that we'll be in the position to casually stroll out of the complex and make the exchange. If we do, they'll just light us up once we make the second exchange. They get everything they want – the downfall of RDA, vindication of their imprisoned compatriots, and your death."

"I'm sure that's what they're thinking," he said. "I'm also sure you're right about another thing – none of us are going to casually walk out of Bay Point, which means they won't get the exchange at all."

"That doesn't sound helpful," Matthew muttered.

Abe took a deep breath and leaned against a wall to weigh his options. They needed the Soldiers of Gaia to distract the main force of RDA's security. Attempting this operation without that element would be wholly unsuccessful. He thought aloud, "They aren't going to give me someone high up the chain, either. They'll say he is, but that'll be bullshit."

The others nodded. "What if we don't reveal the unobtanium conspiracy?" Norm asked. "I mean, what we're doing alone won't take down RDA, it'll just stop the attack on Pandora – maybe. That doesn't do the Soldiers any good."

Abe nodded. "If we give the information to a third-party, or say we do, and demand the release of their hostage as a condition of its exposure, we might get our teammate back." He shrugged. "I can't say it's a terrible idea, not unless someone else has something better."

Matthew sighed and said, "I doubt it. However, if that's the plan, then I guess I'd be okay with being on the exchange."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"It's better than nothing."

Before he could offer anything further, Dawn looked up from her work and said, "Script's ready."

"Then let's test it," Abe said. "Doctor Cook, you'll play Tseyo again, since you're no longer a participant. Dawn, you run control. Luke, you're on for the control room. Let's make this as close to reality as possible."

Their first run failed when Luke got lost in the basement corridors, and their second failed when he was unable to make the barricade hold. However, on the third attempt, the team was able to make it to the fourth section before being overcome by the guards. On each attempt thereafter, as their coordination improved, they made ever greater strides ahead of the mimicked security force, even as Abe and Dawn modified the simulation's parameters to improve the security's response time.

For the first time in days, Abe felt a little less crazy.

* * *

There was a reason she always did her assessment meetings in public places: Her client was not taking the news well.

Krysta's client had hired her to investigate a significant attack on his company which resulted in several thousand customer accounts being compromised, in addition to several tens of thousands of dollars stolen in mid-transaction. Rather than get the FBI involved and risk having the attack exposed for his customers to know, the company turned to her.

"This is ridiculous," the executive said as he paged through the report. "There's no way we have this many vulnerabilities."

"There absolutely is," Krysta replied. "You haven't adequately invested in your IT department in eight years. Do you know how many lifetimes that represents in the IT world? A six-year-old could get by you."

He dropped the tablet on the table, causing the glasses and silverware to clink against each other. "You're just gunning for a bigger contract, aren't you?" he said accusingly. "Let me guess," he said with a sneer, "You have a great subcontractor all lined up to repair our vulnerabilities."

"No, Mister Beckley, I don't," she replied flatly. "I'm only involved in security consulting, and I'm consulting you to plus up your budget – significantly. Whether or not you do it is your own problem."

"Yeah, we'll see about that," he said under his breath. "What about the breach itself? What do you have on that?"

Public places or not, Krysta never met with clients alone. In this case, her personal security also happened to be her information-technology forensics expert. He handed the executive his report, but summarized it nicely. "Your wife."

"What?"

"You didn't tell us you owed a few thousand bucks in child support," he continued. "I guess she got tired of waiting for the courts to come down on you, and so told your six-year-old son he could have a new bike if he just did this one thing for her."

"She's living in the Oakland slums," the spurned executive replied. "It's not possible."

"Greg's work is impeccable," Krysta said, deciding not to educate her client about the myriad of ways it was possible for a single mother exiled to the projects to gain access to the technology necessary to breach his inadequate security infrastructure. "If that's what he says, you should listen."

Her client once again dropped their report on the table, followed soon by his napkin. He stood and said as he briskly walked away, "I'll kill her. Goddammit, I'm going to kill her."

Greg chuckled and said, "I don't think he's going to pay his share of lunch."

"As long as he pays us," Krysta replied as she sipped on her tea, "I don't care that I have to pick up some imitation tuna."

"What's his total?"

"A bit over one-hundred."

He nodded slowly and said, "That's not terrible for six weeks of work." He took a sip of his coffee and then asked, "I know we have a confidentiality agreement, but shouldn't we at least make an attempt to tell someone that a very, very pissed CEO is threatening – and likely – to kill his ex-wife?"

Krysta shook her head. "People say lots of things when they're angry," she said. "But more than that, if we break the contract, we definitely won't get paid. Besides, he might do a good enough job of it that her surviving family will hire us to investigate. That's another thirty, or forty if we drag it out."

Greg laughed loudly enough to turn other patrons' heads. "You never miss an opportunity, do you?"

"It's served me well so far."

"Speaking of opportunities," he said, scooting his chair closer to her and leaning in close, "given any more thought to my offer?"

"I've thought about it for a while, Greg, and the answer is still, 'No.'"

Krysta had known the systems expert from her time at RDA, but not because he was a colleague; far from it, he worked at one of RDA's competitors. They crossed paths most frequently when she suspected him of being behind a breach of RDA's security. Once Abe took over AMIS, they kept in touch by virtue of the fact that Greg would complain about RDA's suspected attacks on his company.

Greg was married, but he was well aware that his wife was cheating on him with another partner of her law firm. In turn, he seduced women every chance he could get, and Krysta was positive his wife was aware of this. Krysta often wondered if it could be properly considered cheating if both spouses were both cognizant and permissive of the infidelity of the other.

The plasma had barely dissipated from Abe's ISV when he called on her, and he had persisted ever since. "You still have another year before Abe gets back," he said with a grin. "Just once. One time, and you'll make me a happy man."

Normally, Krysta would either casually rebuke him or make outright threats against his physical ability to continue on with his adultery. After this morning, however, she was in the mood to do neither. "Let's just table it for now, Greg. It's going to be a long day."

His eyes and grin widened. "I detect progress," he said.

"Hardly," she replied with a snort.

"We're in a hotel," he pressed. "We can pay our bill, check in, and get this off the table before our next meeting. It won't interrupt our day at all."

She sighed and gave him a crosswise glare. "Greg, if you want your share of this last contract, I suggest you shut the fuck up."

He leaned back in his chair and scooted away, a full smile on his face. "That's more like you." He put his napkin on the table and stood. "Anyway, before we move to our next meeting, I have to piss. Be right back."

Krysta just shook her head, and he walked away from the table, winking at a young waitress along the way. Shortly after Greg disappeared into the restroom, Krysta's phone rang from her purse. She dug it out with the intent of turning it off; but when she saw that the call was from Natalie, she set the videophone upright on the table and answered. "What's up, Sweetie?"

"There was a bit of an accident," her daughter replied.

Krysta's heart skipped a beat. With all the things that could possibly go wrong at her home, from her husband's covert activities to Natalie's health, she feared the worst. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Natalie said. "Someone broke our kitchen window, though."

Her pulse quickened. "Did you call the guardhouse? Do I need to come home?"

"It's not like that. It wasn't a break-in, it was a golfer."

"That's not possible," she replied. "Our windows are treated for that."

Natalie chuckled. "Apparently not. That, or the woman was using a driver to get her ball out of the rough."

Krysta frowned. "Natalie, I've taught you better than to stereotype – especially women," she said sternly.

"I'm not stereotyping, she came by to give her information."

She became worried. "You didn't let her in, did you?"

"Of course I did," Natalie replied plainly. "I mean, I couldn't just turn away a person who broke our window and _not_ raise suspicions."

"That's why we have guards, Natalie," Krysta said with a sigh. "You can't let people we don't know in the house, especially now."

"Mom, think this through for a second."

Krysta sighed again, but she obliged her daughter. It soon became apparent to her why her daughter's standing orders were no good in this case. Having guards roaming the house to look for any further vulnerability would end poorly. "I get your point," she said grudgingly. "But she did she say anything unusual? Was she ever out of your sight?"

"No and no. I mean, she wanted to pay and get out of here, but I told her we'd get an estimate."

She was not terribly happy with the situation, but she did not see much else that Natalie could have done. "All right, give me a second." Krysta dug a pen from her purse and grabbed an unused paper napkin from the empty fourth seat of her table. "What's the person's information? I'll call her later." She also fully intended to run this person through her databases of private investigators.

"Bethany Adams. Two-zero-four-one-five, of course."

"Of course."

"Five-five-five, four-one-zero-nine."

Krysta frowned. Adams was one of the forty most common surnames in the country, and Bethany? Beth? Those had to be in the top two-hundred most common first names. Even if she kept her search narrowed to the San Francisco area, or California, she would get back dozens of matches; which assumed this person was amateur enough to not assume an alias. Further still, even the worst private investigator would not use her alias on official documents. That would only come to light through criminal records, if police were able to pick up on it. How many Beth Adams' were in criminal databases?

"Thank you," she said. Still worried, however, she pressed, "Are you sure I don't need to come home?"

"I'm positive."

"Okay. Just, in the future, give me a call _first_ so I can speak with the person."

Natalie grinned and replied, "The next time a golf ball comes careening through the kitchen, I will keep that in mind."

Krysta feigned an indignant eye roll. "See you later, Sweetie."

"Bye, Mom." Natalie hung up, and Krysta put her phone away.

In the meantime, her thoughts turned to what they had been all day in the moments she had to herself – the morning's fight. Krysta was certain that Abe had gone off the reservation. In all of his schemes, even the most daring ones, he never tried to push odds like the ones facing him now. Worst of all, his motivation remained unclear to her.

Even though he had confessed to a large amount of self interest in this plot, she could not help but worry that he had turned soft on the Na'vi. Krysta could understand wanting to go after Savage, or even the governments who kept him afloat. The Na'vi, however, were inconsequential. Had they not stopped revering humans as kinds of demigods – or demons, as their language suggested – Abe would never have been sent to Pandora.

She might have been able to ignore that had Abe not brought back one of the aliens. His presence was a constant reminder to her of why things had turned so far south so quickly for her and Natalie. Worse than Abe's sacrifices on the Na'vi's behalf was Natalie's continued reverence for them. Their attitudes together had made Krysta feel like the last sane person in her house.

Greg returned from the bathroom, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Have we gotten our check, yet?"

Krysta shook her head. "I haven't seen the waiter."

He looked like he was about to say something, but then he noticed the napkin she had jotted on. He took it from in front of her, and then asked, "Are we getting contracts out East, now?"

"Excuse me?"

Greg took another look at the napkin and corrected himself. "Never mind," he said with a shake of his head. "San Francisco area code."

"Back up," she insisted. "Why did you think I was taking a contract on the East Coast?"

"Name's familiar," he replied flatly. "A few years ago, we non-disclosure agreement to resolve a non-disclosure agreement in New York, and hired someone by that name." He grinned and finished his censored tale by saying, "NDA, NDA, NDA, and everything worked out. The sex was pretty good, too."

Krysta scoffed at his flourish, but pressed on. "But her name was Bethany Adams."

"I think she just went by Beth – no." He paused to think. "No, her actual name was Jewel, I think. Or maybe it was June." Greg shrugged. "Beth Adams was the 'official' name, though."

Her stomach turned in knots. "Goddammit," she muttered, withdrawing her phone again.

"What's up?"

"Natalie called. She was at my house this morning."

Greg let out a short laugh and said, "Krys, there are a billion people in this country, and that has to be one of the most common names around."

Krysta was not going to be convinced. However, as she was about to dial her home to raise the alarm, she had another thought. "You said you slept with her?"

He grinned. "Oh yeah. She set the standard for, like, two years thereafter."

"I just needed the first part," she replied flatly. "Do you think you'd recognize her again?"

"Definitely," he said with an emphatic nod.

Krysta dialed the number Natalie gave her. Adding to the case against this woman, her phone display informed her that the dialed number did not have video capability, meaning it was likely a disposable phone purchased locally. After a few rings, a woman picked up. "Hello?"

"Hello. Is this Bethany Adams?"

"May I ask who's calling?"

"Miss Adams, my name is Krysta Scheller. My daughter called me with your information a little while ago. I believe you owe me a new window."

"Oh, yes!" Bethany said. "Yes, I'm so sorry about that."

"These things happen," she replied. "So, I understand my daughter sent you away until we could get an estimate for the repair."

"Yes. She said she learned from you."

Krysta could not help but smile a little bit. "She's smart enough on her own. Anyway, with the air quality about to turn for the worse this week, I'd like to get it fixed quickly."

"Well now, that changes things," Bethany replied hesitantly. "I mean, I admit fault, but I don't want to get gauged for it. Perhaps an estimate is best."

Either the woman was doing her utmost to feign naïveté, or she really was just a poor golfer. "I understand, but like I said, these things happen. We do live on a golf course after all. I'm sure I could find the estimates from the last time this happened, and we can come to an agreement based on that."

"And the cabinet?"

Natalie had neglected to mention that, but Krysta had a quick response. "I've been wanting to replace the cabinets for a while. This is a good excuse to."

"Oh," Bethany said. After a moment's pause, she asked, "Do you want to meet somewhere, or—?"

"Why don't you come back to my place? Scene of the crime, if you will. We can go over what needs to be done and settle it there."

There was another pause. "Sure, that sounds fine. Can I come by tonight? I'll be busy most of the rest of the week."

"At the driving range, I hope." Bethany gave a polite, if not slightly curt, laugh in response. "Tonight would be fine. Say around six?"

"Six it is," she replied. "Well, great. I'm glad we could connect, and I'm sorry again for the inconvenience."

"Not a problem at all," Krysta said politely. "I'll see you this evening."

"Yes. Goodbye."

"Bye." Krysta hung up the phone and turned to Greg. "Did she sound familiar?"

"She sounded like a woman," he said with a shrug. He took a breath and said, "So you suspect that she's a contract-for-hire, but you're inviting her over to your house." Krysta nodded. Greg chuckled and asked, "Are you sick?"

"She smashed my window," Krysta replied. "Natalie was right. If we tried to push her away, she'd probably take that as a good hint that she was on to something – or that we were on to her, and she'd change her M-O. I'm just doing the same thing back to her. If she had turned down the offer to come over, I certainly would have figured something was up."

Greg leaned back in his chair. "That's a dangerous calculation," he said frankly. "What would she be investigating you for anyway?"

Krysta shrugged. "Savage may have some idea of another way to screw us," she replied. "Who knows?"

He frowned. "Well, I don't know that I'd have done the same thing, not without knowing for sure who I was dealing with."

She nodded and replied, "I was actually hoping you'd be willing to help with that." Krysta grinned and added, "How would you like to finally come over to my house tonight?"


	21. Breach of Trust, Part III

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

After the Sky People left their art machine, Tseyo was able to restore focus on his project. He finished grinding down the flower petals into coarse, pigment powders, and then crushed the dead _atokirina_' tendrils into each pile of powder. It had pained him to do so, almost as much as when he discovered the holy seed had not survived its journey through the sky. However, he was confident that, once on his body, whatever spirit lingered in the seed would protect him from undue harm.

He rummaged through the small pile of items he had brought with him from home. Tseyo took two pouches of riverbed sand, the whitest he could find nearest where the waterfall was wearing away the underlying stone, and carefully, evenly added their contents to the pigment as filler.

Tseyo delicately transferred his materials into the washroom, where he needed a moment to recall how Norm had made the river appear. The first knob he turned produced a cold river which, though he would loathe bathing in, suited his craft. He was about to plug the basin with strips of cloth when he noticed a black rock resting on its corner that looked to fit the hole at the basin's base perfectly. He was surprised by how soft and pliable it was when he picked it up, and was pleased that it did, in fact, stop the river water from draining away.

As the basin filled, he took a large, bi-chambered seed and cut it lengthwise. Tseyo scooped out the dried-out, starch-like material from each chamber and discarded the contents in a pile on the floor. It occurred to him that if he were home, he would be able to make a decent flatbread from the excess.

Once the basin had filled enough to his liking, he turned the knob to stop the river's flow, and then Tseyo carefully dipped the empty seed chambers into the basin. He stopped when each was about half full of water, at which point he added back a portion of the discarded starch. Tseyo used his hands to mix the solution, breaking apart lumps as they appeared.

From the meals he had been invited to sit on, he figured that the fire he needed to continue was kept upstairs. Although he was under orders to stay in this space unless summoned, he was feeling defiant. After all, it had been made clear to him that he was a critical part of T'ngyute's scheme, so he did not feel particularly threatened by potential consequences for his insubordination.

Balancing the two seed halves on his left arm, he made his way up the stairs and opened the door to the main living space. Most of the group which had been training earlier was seated about the dining table, and Natalie was casually relaxed on a long, padded and backed stone seat, distracted by the squared stone that seemed to be ubiquitous to Sky People. They all, however, turned when he emerged and appeared too surprised to say anything. He responded to their silent questions, "I've seen enough of your customs. It's time for me to show you some of mine."

Natalie sat upright and asked, "What are you talking about?"

"We're going to make paint," he said flatly, indicating the seed halves on his arm. "But we need fire to do it."

Norm emerged from a nearby room. Though he appeared as though he were just napping, he did not waste a moment to ask, "What are you doing up here?"

"I've spent enough time hidden away," Tseyo said. "If we are fighting tomorrow, I don't want to spend today alone."

"Tseyo, it's for your safety," Norm said. "If someone sees…"

"Who's going to see me?" he interrupted, looking around the home. "All the spaces are covered. I know you need to hide me when we're outside, but now I'm safe."

Either Norm's heart was not committed to an argument, or Tseyo was as persuasive as he had hoped. Norm rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Did I hear you say you needed a fire?" Tseyo nodded, and Norm walked in front of him. "It's back here." Where Norm was cautiously reserved, Natalie was intrigued; and she stood up, setting aside her stone, to follow them into the preparation area.

Tseyo set his seed halves on the large, raised stonetop in the center of the area, and then sat on the floor. He looked about the stone for the fire's fuel source, but then Norm whistled to get his attention. He grinned and said, "The fire's over here, Tseyo." He turned a black knob on a bright, white stone and, after a series of clicks, a small blue flame emerged.

He was both impressed and confused. Tapping on the stone in front of him, he asked, "So what's this for?"

"Preparation," Natalie said patiently. "But we cook over where Norm is."

Tseyo nodded slowly, and then shifted around the preparation stone to sit beside Norm. He took the seeds, looked at Natalie, and said, "First, the mix in here needs to be heated to become more firm."

He was about to place the seed atop the fire, when Norm stopped him. "I know that's how you do it," he said with a grin, "but the burning smell of the seed is too acrid for our noses."

"Then do you have a bowl?" He gave Norm a wry smile and asked, "Or would you prefer to boil the water in your hands?"

Norm chuckled before he turned to Natalie. They exchanged a few words in their native language, and then she opened a compartment beneath the preparation stone. She withdrew four large, metallic and cylindrical bowls. "These are a bit better than clay bowls," Norm said.

He let out a short laugh and shook his head. "I shouldn't be surprised you have something better."

They carefully transferred the starchy mixture into the four containers, and then set them on top of an equal number of fires. It took him a moment to adjust to managing four fires, as opposed to the one fire pit as he was used to. While the technology was new to him, he was able to control the consistency in each container based on his well honed understanding of his people's traditions – even with the oddly crafted, bowled stick they gave him to use.

Natalie and Norm, on the other hand, seemed to be frustrated when they would ask questions about measurements of ingredients and he would give them such responses as "a pinch" or "when it looks right."

When the starchy mixtures became more viscous, he sent Natalie down to recover the crushed leaves he would use for pigments. She came up with them and with a question. "What's all that stuff piled on the floor?" she asked, sounding a bit irritated.

He grinned at her and said, "Seeds don't come empty."

"How much is down there?" Norm asked.

"A lot," she replied as she handed Tseyo the pigment powders. "The pile's up to my knees."

Norm looked at Tseyo and, picking up on his earlier, passing thoughts, asked, "While we're cooking, do you want to make _tsyopayamem_?"

He nodded, trying not to look too enthusiastic. "We shouldn't be wasteful."

Norm gathered together some bowls – made of a substance neither metallic nor clay, almost like finely polished bone – and then some of his friends who were still sitting at the table, watching Tseyo while making idle conversation.

Natalie stayed behind, still curious to learn. He took the containers off their fires – which Natalie quickly extinguished by turning the knobs – and then prepared to mix in the pigments. "Was there any special reason why you chose these colors?"

"Yes," he said, explaining each before putting them into the mix. "This red is for the blood my people have shed. Yellow is the color of those who have undergone _Iknimaya_. Purple is to honor my spirit animal, _tsì'ikran_. And black—," he finished with a shrug. "It's a color we sometimes wear when we hunt to help us hide in the shadows."

"You're making a lot of red," Natalie commented.

Tseyo decided not to respond.

She might have pressed him for more details, but Norm returned with his friends. "There's still more," he said as they set their bowls down. He and Natalie had a quick exchange, again in their own tongue, which resulted in Norm finding a large, metallic bowl in which he and his friends discarded the seed's excess before heading back downstairs.

In the meantime, Tseyo monitored his colors. The yellow pigment mixed with the seed's starch and turned more orange than yellow, while the red, purple, and black brightened. He fixed the red by adding some of the black into it, but was otherwise content with how his work had turned out.

About the time Norm and the others returned with their second batch of starch, Natalie asked, "How do you know when the paint's done?"

He smiled and said, "There's a very simple way to know." She raised her eyebrows, and then he dipped a finger in the purple and quickly smeared it on her cheek. Natalie recoiled with a short, surprised shout while others chuckled. He broadened his smile and said, "It looks ready."

She responded by lightly hitting his knee with the stick she used to prop herself up. "Thanks," she said dryly as she dampened a cloth.

"It looks good on you," he replied. "Your skin brings it out."

Natalie responded with a cross look, but then smiled before she rubbed the paint off of her.

* * *

"How are we doing?" Abe asked from his worktable.

"Either they have no idea I'm in," Dawn replied, "or they know and are letting me get away with poking around."

There were only so many virtual reality simulations Abe could force his team to run before they needed to ground themselves in the real world. As morning gave way to afternoon, he gave everybody the rest of the day to relax in anticipation of the long day tomorrow.

Vertex, his daughter's dog, lazily rested at his feet. He had been locked in Abe's study for most of the time since Abe's return, and at first he was reluctant to let Abe work peacefully. However, after Abe offered a few scratches behind the ears and a prolonged belly rub, Vertex was content to let him be.

However, he had some final affairs to get in order before he could take the same luxury. The first was to ensure that Dawn could navigate RDA's complex cyber security web without getting caught and, as important, set the stage for tomorrow's assault. His second order of business was to ensure that he would not be stopped at the door and have to join the rest of the team in the long, treacherous slog through RDA's complex. He put the final touches on his forged identification – his work much helped when Dawn stumbled into the server which contained RDA's ID templates while she ensured he was removed from their list of _personae non gratae _– and created a template for his Soldier companion.

His third order of business, however, was much more personal. He had situated Dawn to run the mission's control from the house for more than the safety of their connection, but he had waited to fill her in on her secondary role so she could concentrate on her primary mission. He took a breath and turned in his chair. "I need you to do something for me."

Dawn looked up from her tablet. "What's that?"

"If tomorrow falls apart, I need you to get Krysta and Natalie out of here."

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Boss—," she began with a sigh. "Boss, it's not going to help anybody if you start worrying about the worst case scenario at this stage. It's best to assume the mission's going to work out."

"I've had no shortage of people give me the impression that it won't," he replied with a chuckle. "So it's hard to shake."

"This is a bit crazy," she said. "Still, at some point you just need to put on your game face and let things happen as they're going to."

"I don't disagree, but if _this_ happens, I want there to be a plan in place to deal with it."

Dawn took in a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. "All right, what do you have in mind?"

"Well, first, you're probably going to have to actually force them out. Krysta won't leave here willingly, not after everything she's done to keep the place."

"Hold a gun to your wife's head – check," she said with a grin.

He was not so amused, but he did not think it best to snap at her. "Second, she should have some emergency funds stashed away. I'll make sure they're accessible to you before we go."

"And to what exotic locale am I herding your family?"

"Berlin."

She frowned. "No offense, Boss, but I figured a guy like you could afford a slightly better hideout than Berlin."

Abe did let himself smile at that. "Probably, but there are two reasons for Berlin. One, you can get there quickly on the high-speeds out of San Francisco. Second, Krysta and I have a mutual friend there who can keep her and Natalie under the radar until the worst of Savage's rage blows over."

"And me?"

"You shouldn't be on Savage's hit list," he said, "so you can take whatever's left of the emergency fund and go wherever you want."

"If it's only fifty bucks…"

"I'm sure Krysta will supplement," he interrupted.

They were quiet for a few moments, and then she shook her head. "You're asking a lot."

"If we're talking candidly—," he waited for her to nod in response before continuing on. "This is more important to me than the mission. I'll consider tomorrow successful only if my family is safe at the end of it."

Dawn leaned back in her chair. "All right, _candidly_, I don't think everybody would be thrilled to know that you're using them just to protect your own. I mean, we have – or, I guess after eleven years, had – families, too."

"I suspect you all have your own reasons for coming this far," he replied. "Norm and Luke want to keep the Na'vi safe. Doctors Patel and Cook want to get Doctor Augustine's work out to the public. Colonel Hall is _obviously_ still in love with Norm—," he held up his hands. "I don't see why, but okay."

She crossed her arms and grinned. "Got us all figured out?"

"It's my job," he said with a shrug. "You, though, I'm not entirely sure of."

"I left everything behind to go to Pandora," she said. "Coming back without anything to show for it probably would have driven me over a cliff, so I'm hoping this will make putting my life on hold worthwhile."

"And if it's not?"

Dawn lightly shook her head. "I don't know," she replied. "It doesn't seem like there'll be much of a life possible being on RDA's shit list. I mean, there goes re-enlistment at a minimum."

"There are twenty billion people on this planet," he said. "They can't go after everyone, contrary to popular belief." Abe chuckled and said, "Believe me, even RDA doesn't have the resources to do that."

"They don't have to come after me," she replied. "If they block me from going anywhere, that's enough."

"You've seamlessly infiltrated one of the most advanced cyber security networks in the world, and yet you couldn't, say, make a new identity for yourself to avoid that?"

"I've worked hard on _this_ identity," she replied with a scowl. "Yeah, I could probably do it, but I'd hate myself for it. It would be a constant reminder that they won."

"I guess that's fair," he said with a nod. "Anyway, will you take care of this for me?"

"Yeah," she replied. "I mean, if you're caught, I'll have to run anyway. We might as well all go together."

It was not the enthusiastic response he had quietly hoped to hear, but it was better than being rejected. "Thank you." He was going to say more, but his train of thought was interrupted by a crash of pans from the kitchen. Even Vertex was roused from his nap.

Abe quickly went for the door, but he paused before opening it in order to discern if there was any real danger. Even though Natalie had talked him down from his instinctual reaction to the morning's intrusion, he was not completely convinced that RDA was not already sending its goons out to find him.

But rather than hear the sounds of a hit squad making its way through the lower levels, he heard something just as disconcerting: Na'vi – and not just human dialects, but one deep, fluent voice that was too familiar. Abe stepped out into the hallway and leaned over the railing to look into the kitchen. "What's he doing upstairs?" he asked sternly.

"Getting over cabin fever," Norm replied. "Or as best he can, given the circumstances."

"By making a mess?" And then another thing hit him. "Why does it smell like potatoes?"

"We're making bread, Daddy," Natalie said. "Tseyo brought some flour-ish stuff, and he wanted to make bread for us. So we're helping."

Although Tseyo, Norm, and Natalie, were in the kitchen itself, it appeared that the rest of the team was helping with the preparation. They had taken an assortment of pots and pans back to the dining table to break up a starchy substance. He wanted to put an end to it and send Tseyo back to the basement, but then Norm said, "Remember, Abe, meals are trust-building for the Na'vi. So if you want Tseyo in prime condition for tomorrow, pick up a bowl."

* * *

To her father's credit, he did join the rest of the group in the kitchen without needing to be further goaded. Whether or not he was happy about it, Natalie was less certain. "So we're making bread?" he asked dryly.

"Recipe straight from Pandora," she replied. "Did you have much of this when you were up there?"

Abe and Norm replied simultaneously, but in opposition to each other. Her father took a breath and said, "They had it, but they weren't eager to share."

"Yeah, well, you didn't exactly make for great dining company," Norm replied.

She sighed and shook her head. "Well, there will be enough to go around tonight, so it won't be a problem."

Abe and Norm stared at each other for a moment longer, and then Abe asked, "So what do we need to do?"

Natalie walked her father through the recipe, not that there was much to say about it. It was bread in its most basic elements: flour and water. If the Na'vi had fancier culinary tricks, or any concepts of standardized measurements, Tseyo was keeping them locked in his mind.

When the others produced their first bowls of dried flour, Tseyo carried it from the table over to her – although she was quick to notice her father intercepting him at the last minute, and then standing in between them while he gave further instructions. "Pour in water until I tell you to stop," he said plainly.

"Shouldn't we have at least one measuring cup out here?" her father asked in the meantime.

"I don't think they have those on Pandora," Natalie replied as she ran tap water into the bowl.

"But we do," her father insisted.

She overcame her frustration to smile at him and say, "Daddy, relax. Tseyo has been doing this for a few years, now, and it's not all that complicated. He'll let us know if we screw it up."

"That's good," Tseyo said. "Now mix it up well."

"Are we at least going to spice it? Tradition's fine, but I'm not too enthusiastic about being bland."

"That's actually a fair question," Norm said before Natalie could offer her thoughts. "Na'vi will usually throw whatever excess spices they have laying around into the dough. Do you have a spice rack?"

Natalie opened one of the lower cabinet doors to reveal their array of spices. "Knock yourself out," she said.

While Norm and Tseyo meticulously went through each spice, Natalie was finding that the dough was becoming more resistant to her mixing. It was too viscous in this volume for her to do alone; and so she grabbed a second bowl, pour in half of her mixture, and gave the bowl to her father. "It's your turn."

He did not hesitate to begin mixing, though after giving a sideways look to Norm and Tseyo – who was going back and forth between thyme and tarragon – he let out a short laugh and said, "Maybe we should just go ahead and throw in some chocolate chips."

Natalie paused for a moment to ask simply, "What?"

Abe looked at her with a faint smile on his face and replied, "C'mon, you remember the pancakes." She furrowed her brow, waiting for him to explain. "The day before I left? You and me standing here, you on your stool, mixing up chocolate chip pancakes? I know you remember."

She made an honest effort to try and recall the memory, but she could not. Natalie slowly shook her head and said, "Sorry, Daddy, but I don't."

He turned away as his smile faded and quietly said, "Oh."

Natalie noticed his body tense up, if only for a moment, before he resumed mixing. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he said. "I just – I forgot that it was a longer time ago for you than it was for me."

She sighed and resumed mixing, but she could not drop the topic. "It's not like I _tried_ to forget. I've actually tried to remember more…"

"It's okay," he said, interrupting her. "You grew up – I know. You don't remember everything from when you were a kid."

"Right," Natalie replied. "But I'm sorry I don't," she added after a moment of silence. "It sounded like it was fun."

"I wanted that day to be special for you." She glanced over at him in time to see him clench his jaw, eyes fixed on the bowl as though he were forcing himself to stay concentrated. Natalie felt a tinge of pain at the sight, but she did not dare dwell on it for long.

Natalie took another breath and resumed mixing, asking Tseyo, "When will we know when it's ready?"

"When it looks right," he replied without looking up from the spices. Norm did turn, however briefly, to give her a grin and a roll of his eyes, forcing her to let out a short laugh.

A short time later, Norm stepped between her and her father with a plate containing four small piles of spices. "Master Chef Kllkx Muitan has selected rosemary, cayenne pepper, sea salt, and sugar cane for today."

Before she could ask, Tseyo reached over her father to grab a small handful of all four spices and dropped them into her bowl. He did likewise, although with a touch less enthusiasm, for her father. "You can add more if you think it needs it," Tseyo offered.

"Looks good to me," she said.

Abe, however, took another pinch of cayenne pepper and dropped it into his bowl. "You only get one chance to spice it right," he said. Natalie looked over and saw Tseyo smile before heading to the dining table to get another bowl of flour. She also saw, though, that it was unlikely her father had taken note of Tseyo's approval.

They finished mixing and poured the first loaves onto floured baking sheets, and then inserted them into the preheated oven. This last step appeared to bother Tseyo, who asked, "Can we leave that open? I can't see the bread to know if it's cooking right."

"We'll lose the heat if we do," Norm said. "Just go with your instinct on when it should be ready, like you've been doing all day."

"Instinct is fine," Tseyo replied, "but sometimes it also helps to see what you're doing."

Norm chuckled and, switching to English, said, "Oh, _now_ he gets empirical." Natalie also let herself chuckle at Tseyo's expense.

They continued to bake for several more hours, until most of the flour was gone. They stacked the flatbread loaves on the kitchen's island, each with its own shape and seasoning. They were brittle for the most part, although some where people had taken liberty with the sugar cane retained a kind of softness. Tseyo was preparing to do the honors of breaking the loaves into smaller chips when he asked Natalie, "Where's your father?"

She looked around, a moment ago having been certain that he was still with them, but it was clear he had made a silent exit some time after the last dough was poured. He had been quiet for the most part ever since their exchange at the start of the baking endeavor. It was clear that she had upset him, but he had rejected her attempted apology; so she did not feel obligated to go looking for him. Instead she just shrugged.

Tseyo frowned for a moment, but then shrugged himself and began breaking the bread down. Several plates were required to contain all the chips, but not for long. The group eagerly grabbed for handfuls of their labor, and just as quickly consumed it. There were only two times when people walked away from the island. The first was when Max decided that they needed salsa, and Natalie recalled there was some in the refrigerator for him to retrieve. The second time was when she placed a few chips on a smaller plate and went looking for her father.

She found him in his study, Vertex at his feet; although he made a b-line for Natalie when she walked in with the plate of food.

Abe looked up from his worktable and greeted her with a faint smile. "I couldn't escape, could I?"

"I'm afraid not," she replied with a shake of her head. "Yours turned out really well," she said, handing him the plate.

"Thanks," he said, taking the plate from her but setting it aside. "I'll snack on it a bit later. I have some stuff to finish up."

She was not buying it, but arguing over the point seemed like it would be wasted effort. Natalie turned to leave when she heard the garage door open. "Oh shit," she said. "Mom's going to freak."

"It's all right," he replied, standing up from the table. "We'll be fine."

Natalie followed him downstairs, the two of them arriving just in time for her mother to walk through the door. Despite Natalie's prediction, Krysta did not freak out, but she was also less than happy. "Why is every pot and pan we own out?" she asked pointedly.

"Tseyo wanted to start a cooking class," Abe replied. "So, I hope you like bread, because it's what's for dinner."

Her mother just shook her head and sighed. "Yeah, well, unless you want to invite the Savage over, get it all cleaned up. We have a guest coming by this evening."

* * *

Jude pulled in front of the Schellers' house, but waited to get out of the car. Ever since Krysta had called her, she had been debating whether or not her cover had worked or was blown.

Entering the house was an aggressive tactic for her, but she considered it worth the risk in order to set up the remote microphone outside the broken window. She did not expect to capture great audio from it, but certainly enough to confirm whether or not she was wasting her time looking for her target at his house.

She promised herself to make the first download as soon as she returned to the hotel room – which a very large part of her wanted to have happen sooner rather than later. If her cover was blown, though, there would be no point in making any downloads. Jude would certainly have to report her failure to her RDA handler. He would, in turn, ensure that she never worked as a hired investigator again.

On the chance that her ruse had worked, running away now would mean passing on the opportunity to plant stronger listening devices inside the house. She would also be able to keep Franklin off her back by being able to provide him with some intel, for better or for worse.

Jude adjusted the camera-concealing broche on her blouse, and made one final check of her makeup in the rearview mirror. She also checked her purse to make sure that the microphones she intended to plant – a two pens, her business card, and a pack of gum – were still operational.

Putting on her façade, she casually stepped out of the car and approached the Schellers' door. She knocked on the door. They had a video intercom linked in, but she suspected they used it for their own surveillance purposes than to use it to answer doors, what with the guards calling ahead to announce visitors.

Indeed, the door opened and Krysta said with a smile, "Hello, Bethany. I'm glad you could make it tonight."

"Happy to," she replied. "This is my fault after all."

"Well, we'll get it taken care of." Jude stepped into the house, and Krysta closed the door behind her.

Jude took a quick look around the foyer and commented, "You do have a lovely house, Missus Scheller."

"Krysta, please," she replied, "and thank you."

She took in a breath and said, "Well, shall we return to the scene of the crime?" Krysta nodded and escorted her back to the kitchen, and which point Jude commented, "It smells like you've been doing a lot of cooking since we spoke."

"That would be Natalie," Krysta replied. "She's been active in the kitchen since she was a child."

If Krysta was on to her, she was doing a fantastic job of not showing it. "No wonder she seemed upset this morning," Jude continued in idle conversation. "I trashed her shrine. Where is she, by the way?"

"She's having dinner in her room while she studies," Krysta replied casually.

"I see," Jude said with a nod. "Well, later I'd like to apologize to her again for startling her this morning."

Krysta waved her hand and said, "She's fine. Frankly, we're both just glad you came by to own up," she added as they sat down at the dining table. "The last time this happened, we had to call the guards to stop everybody on the course."

"Sounds fun," Jude said with a short laugh.

Krysta grinned and replied, "Not for them."

For the next few minutes, Jude and Krysta haggled over invoices from the last time the Schellers – or at least that Krysta alleged the Schellers – had to go through similar hassles. Krysta noted the price of tempered windows, and Jude noted that there was no chance that their windows had been tempered, thus waiving her liability to pay full price. In all the back and forth, Jude was waiting for the moment that Krysta might give up more than she was letting on; but by the end of their exchange, it appeared to her that Krysta was arguing on the level.

Eventually, they settled on a price – Jude would pay for a standard window and labor, and Krysta would absorb the difference. Krysta had already drawn up a template contract, and Jude used her microphoned pen to sign it, and then casually left the pen sitting on the dining room table.

"Well, now that that's settled," Krysta said, "would you like a quick tour of the house?"

It seemed too good to be true. However, in keeping with her reserved character – and not wanting to tip her hand – she replied, "Circumstances being what they are, I don't want to overstay my welcome."

"No, not at all," Krysta said. "To be honest, I almost never have visitors these days. So this would kind of be a treat for me."

Jude smiled and cheerfully said, "If you insist."

The tour was quick, and Jude spent it looking for possible entry points and prime locations to plant additional equipment. She got her best opportunity when Krysta took her to the study on the second floor. Jude also got her first angle to ask about her primary target when Krysta said, "My husband insisted on having this when we first moved in."

"This is the first I've heard of _Mister_ Scheller," Jude said. "Where is he?"

"Very far away on business," Krysta replied with a short laugh. "He should be back in about a year, though."

"Gone for a year?" she asked, trying to feign incredulity. "I didn't think _anybody_ took trips like that these days, not unless they're migrants."

"Well, it was his choice." She was quiet for a moment, and then shook her head. "Anyway, that pretty much wraps up the house."

"Thank you for taking the time to show me around," Jude replied. She took out her business card and second pen and scrawled her cell phone number on it, and then casually left the pen on an end table as she handed her card to Krysta. "If anything else should come up, please let me know."

"I certainly will," Krysta said with a nod, and then they walked towards the front door.

When Krysta opened the door, however, Jude was unpleasantly surprised. Rather than have a clear path back to her car, a man – a familiar man – was standing on the front step. It had been several years, but she remembered working with him on a project in New York City. More than the job itself, she still very clearly remembered sleeping with him throughout the duration of the contract.

He obviously remembered her, too. "Jewel!" Greg exclaimed with a wide, wry grin as her stomach contracted. "You said you'd call me."

She tried to make a break for it past him, but he very easily caught her and returned her inside the house. For the second time tonight, Krysta closed the door behind her; but she had no plans to be taken down so easily.

First, she drove her knee into Greg's crotch, which she followed with a punch to his stomach. He did his best to maintain his hold on her, but the second time she kneed him was enough to get him to let go and double over. Jude made a break for the door again, but Krysta tackled her to the floor.

The two wrestled on the floor for a few moments when, at the moment Jude thought she was able to make her escape, yet another person entered the foyer. He grabbed Jude by her shoulders and very roughly forced her against the wall. "I'll thank you to _not_ fight with my wife in our house," he said.

She responded by trying to elbow his stomach, but he was holding her arms tightly; so she tried stepping on his toes, but that appeared to have no effect. Despite her continued struggles, Jude knew she was caught.

"Thanks for taking your time," Krysta said as she stood up from the floor.

"I didn't know you finished the tour so quickly, Honey," Abe replied. "Or else I would have been here sooner."

Catching his breath, Greg chimed in, "Jesus, Krys, you forgot to mention your husband was back! Coulda saved my nuts the effort."

"About that," Abe said. "Krysta tells me you've been trying to 'make partner' in my absence. Is that right?" Greg's response was something between a monosyllabic muttering and an articulated grunt. Abe continued, "Thanks for your help, but get the fuck out of my house before I give you a performance review."

Jude could not see it, but from the way the door slammed, it sounded as though Greg made a quick exit.

"Why don't we finish your tour in the basement, huh?" Abe said as he forced her to walk down the hall.

"You know it's a crime to force me to stay here," Jude said. "Let me go now, and I'll just cancel the contract."

Abe scoffed as they entered the basement stairwell. "Yeah, I don't know what snide comments Savage had to say about me in my personnel file, but I'm not actually that stupid."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "It seems to me like you have no idea what you're going up against."

He casually replied, "I think I have a clue. That's why I brought help."

They turned the corner of the stairs to be received by a group of people and, stunning Jude into silence, one very unhappy looking Na'vi.


	22. Decisions

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – Long chapter. First section may be disturbing to some readers, and the last section pushes up against the allowable "T" rating, as does the last. You know what? Let's just go ahead and rate this chapter as "M" to be safe. A summary is at the end if you want to keep up with the story but are uncomfortable reading mature themes.

* * *

Norm and Tseyo had been asked to remain in the basement for Abe's interrogation of RDA's goon, although Norm was fast becoming uncomfortable with the situation. RDA's goon was forcefully seated in a chair, her hands bound behind its back with duct tape and her feet to its legs. She had fought through the process, landing a solid kick to Luke's mouth when he went for her feet. Amy had taken him upstairs ahead of the others' dismissal in order to treat his split lip.

Abe kept the basement lights turned off, except for an adjustable floor lamp that he moved beside her. He bent the lamp's neck so that the light was beamed directly onto her, at which point she said, "I've already seen your face. What's the point of this?"

"Who said it's to hide my face?" Abe replied.

She chuckled. "Oh, so it's supposed to make me nervous, then?"

"Unfortunately, I don't have a polygraph," he replied, sounding as though he were making a sincere apology. Norm found himself surprised that Abe, of all people, did not have such an instrument in his house. "However," Abe continued, "it's easier for me to tell when you're lying if I can see every tick on your face, every shift in your pupils. Direct light helps."

"And your two friends?" she asked. "Are we going to play 'good cop, bad cop, and freak?'"

"They have as much interest in this as I do, but no. No cops today."

"You know RDA's going to get suspicious when I don't report in tomorrow morning," she said. "It won't take them long to put two and two together."

Abe shrugged and pulled up another chair. He did not sit, however, but leaned against its back. "It won't matter by the time they do," he replied. "You're already well behind the power curve."

She gave him a cocked smile and said, "Oh, do tell."

Abe chuckled and sat down. "That would be cliché, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe," she said. "But you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine."

He pursed his lips and lightly shook his head. "Sorry, but this isn't a _quid pro quo_ situation."

She took a breath and replied, "Your loss, then."

They stared at each other for an uncomfortably long amount of time, each intensely concentrated in their own ways. Abe was clearly trying to get a read on her weaknesses – Norm expected nothing less from him – and she seemed to be fortifying herself against his silent probing. Tseyo leaned over to Norm and whispered, "How long will they do this?"

Norm just shrugged.

It was Abe, though, who broke the silence. "Bethany Adams, right?" She remained still, silent. Abe smiled. "Do you know what makes a good alias?" Silence. "I'm sure you do, since this is your job – and I assume you're usually pretty good at it. But, since you're not talking—?" He waited a moment before he continued, "It's the ease with which you can assume the identity.

"I have no doubts that if I went to verify all of your documents, I would come back to a Bethany Adams. Driver's license, social security number, birthday." He paused. "Obituary?"

While she was quiet and almost motionless, Norm thought he saw Abe's smile tick just a little wider.

"Stealing a dead person's vitals is one thing," he continued. "Just about anybody can do that. But _assuming_ that identity – not just using it to mask your activities – either requires you to be a fantastic method actor, or to be familiar with the identity."

More silence.

"Was she a friend?" he asked, leaning forward. Some moments later, "Family?" It looked to Norm like she took a deeper breath. Some of the levity drained from Abe's voice when he asked, "What exactly did RDA hire you to do?"

He received no answer.

Abe sat back in the chair and crossed his arms. "You never really will be another person, though," he said, plainly serious now. "You can change your voice, but not always the way you inflect it. You can force yourself to behave one way, but your mind is still inclined to behave another. You can put on makeup, change clothes, and even the color of your skin these days, but there will always be things – blood, hair, fingerprints – that are quintessentially _you_."

He paused before saying, as though he were wondering aloud, "I wonder if I sent some of your blood, your hair, or your fingerprints to the FBI or Interpol if they would come back to the innocent Bethany Adams, or someone of greater interest."

Her leg twitched, but it could have been for any number of reasons.

"What exactly did RDA hire you to do?"

She remained silent.

Without turning towards him, Abe asked, "Norm, you were out there when I met Jake and Neytiri for the first time, right?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember what it was I said the three of us had in common?"

He tried to recall, but failed. "No."

"Murdered siblings," he said flatly. "And I owe you an apology."

Norm _could_ think of several ways Abe owed him an apology, but he did not see the point in bringing all of them up. "Oh yeah?"

"I lied to you yesterday. I have ordered one person to be killed." Norm was not surprised, although the revelation did manage to make his skin crawl. "It wasn't anything RDA wanted done," Abe quickly clarified, "but a guy can't rape and murder an RDA executive's sister and expect to sit quietly in a jail cell for the rest of his life." He took a breath and crossed his legs. "It bothered me for a little while, but then I figured that anybody in my position, with my resources, would do likewise for their family."

He let that turn over in his mind for a while. As a general rule, Norm was a believer in letting law and order take its course; but then RDA and its ilk had done plenty to subvert the normal order of justice. On a personal level, though, Norm was not sure that if he were in Abe's shoes, he would not do likewise – assuming he could be just as corrupt.

Abe leaned forward an asked again, "What exactly did RDA hire you to do?" She remained silent. Abe nodded slowly, and then stood from the chair. He hesitated, giving her a long stare – which she did not meet with her own eyes – and then headed upstairs.

Tseyo leaned over again and whispered, "She's scared."

Norm looked back at him with a puzzled expression. "Are you sure?" Tseyo nodded. "How can you tell?"

"Her fingers," he said with a quick glance in her direction. "It's how she's been able to keep her face still – by moving her fingers."

Although Norm trusted Tseyo's reading of the woman, she was not his primary concern. "Any thoughts on Abe – _T'ngyute_?"

"He seems very cold," Tseyo replied. "What did he say to the woman just now?"

Norm loosely translated for him, reading between the lines of Abe's inquiries. "He said he killed someone who killed his sister, and he wants the woman to tell him if she was sent to hurt his family, too."

Tseyo's eyes wandered for a moment, his brow furrowed, and then he sat upright once more, his head somewhat lowered. He took a breath and said, "She should be very worried."

As if to confirm Tseyo's suspicions, Abe returned to the basement with a golf bag full of clubs. He set it upright, and then grabbed the roll of duct tape from beside the woman's chair. He quickly tore off a piece and slapped it on her mouth, and then he raised her shirt up to her breasts.

"Abe, what are you doing?" Norm asked.

Abe tapped the shirt down without immediately responding. "When Jake's posse captured me," he said as he casually walked to the golf bag, "one of them broke my ribs with some kind of trapping weapon. My chest hurt like hell for weeks."

Even though it was obvious from even before Abe exposed her, the woman had a stunning body. What caught his eye in this moment, however, was not the firmness of her stomach or the curves of her breasts, but that, in the direct light on her taut skin, Norm could see the outline of her ribs.

He took a quick survey of the unfolding scene and let out a nervous laugh. "Abe, c'mon. You said it yourself, she's already too late. This isn't funny."

"It didn't help that they tied me to a pole immediately afterwards," he said, ignoring Norm's protest. Abe pulled a club from the bag. "These were a fifteenth anniversary present from Chairman Savage," he continued. "Anniversary of being at RDA, anyway." He turned the club's head over in his hand a few times. "Top of the line, of course – graphite shafts, composite heads, and meticulously perfected centers of gravity."

He tapped the club's head on one of her ribs, causing her to wince – whether it was the cold metal, a soft spot on her body, or a dreaded moment of anticipation catching up to her, Norm would never know.

"Here's what I want to know," Abe said as he tapped the club on her ribs. "What club did you use to smash my window?"

"Abe—."

"It couldn't have been a wedge," he said with a slight chuckle, withdrawing the club from her skin and putting it back in the bag. "That's too high of a loft. Maybe…" he dug through the clubs before pulling out "…a five iron?" He tried another club. "A six iron?"

Norm looked at the woman's hands. They were balled into fists. He wanted to intervene, or to simply walk away, but he was just as worried about what Abe's fallback plan might be. What if he brought down the rest of the team? Surely they would not stand for this.

"No, an iron wouldn't have the power to smash a window. Not from the fairway, certainly not out of the rough," Abe said. "Ah!" He withdrew a club with a wide, thick head. "A fairway wood could do it." Abe set the club on the floor as though he were practicing at a driving range.

"It has the same low angle loft as an iron," he said as he shifted his feet and started his back swing, "but a high moment of inertia," as he swung the club, "to carry the full force of the swing through the ball and down the fairway." He patted the club's head in his hand. "A titanium face on a solid steel head. It's beautiful."

Abe crouched beside her, resting the club against his shoulder, and said, "There is one thing I'm pretty damned certain of, and it's that you have no pain resistance. You're a woman who uses her mind, not her body, to get what she needs." He grinned and clarified, "Well, maybe not often, but I'm guessing that's usually not so painful."

He stood up and moved in front of her, kicking aside the chair he had been sitting in. Abe held the club's face against her lower ribs and asked, "What _exactly_ did RDA hire you to do?" His lips curled into a wry grin and he said, "Feel free to talk through the tape."

Instead she took a series of deep breaths and narrowed her eyes at him.

His face hardened. "Fine."

Abe's swing might have been the envy of a professional golfer if he were swinging at anything other than a woman. The club was almost silent as it moved through the air, which made the sickening, fleshy impact – and subsequent crack – with her chest all the worse, causing both Norm and Tseyo to wince.

Her scream was loud, even with the tape masking her mouth, and she leaned forward as much as she could. She closed her eyes tightly as she writhed and moaned in the chair, and tears were quick to stream down her cheek.

"Christ, Abe!" Norm shouted. "What's wrong with you?"

Abe continued to ignore him. He grabbed her jaw and leaned forward inches from her face, causing the chair to lean back in the process. "I have two, very qualified doctors upstairs," he said. "I can either bring them down here to treat you…" he pressed the club into the quickly bruising skin, causing her to moan, take in a sharp breath, and struggle against him "…or I can keep going until your lungs collapse. What's it going to be?"

He dropped the club and pulled the tape off of her mouth. She stared at him for a long second, her eyes welling up with more tears. When it looked like she was going to try and stay resolute, Norm shouted, "For fuck's sake, tell him something!"

She looked over at him, and then briefly over to Tseyo, before she looked back at Abe and said in a shaky voice, "They know you're here."

"No shit?" Abe said dismissively. "So why did they send you and not a SecOps team?"

She tried to take a breath, but winced when she inhaled too deeply. Eventually she said, "They want to know what caused you to switch sides so they can destroy all traces of it, not just you."

"Were you supposed to do that, or someone else?" Abe hit her across the face with the back of his hand when she did not answer right away. "Were you supposed to do that, or were they going to send someone else?"

"I was!" she shouted. "I was hired for the full package, to gather the information and bury the links."

Abe held her for a little while longer, and then brusquely released her. He picked up the golf club and dropped it back into the bag. "Here's what's going to happen," he said casually. "Even if you didn't tell me anything, if RDA found out you were captured, you'd still be considered a liability. The best you could hope for is that they'd make certain you never worked as a hired gun again."

He picked up the chair he had kicked over and sat in front of her once again. "Tomorrow morning, I'm supposed to hand over one of my team to the Soldiers of Gaia as collateral for not screwing them over. You're going to be that person."

"To the Soldiers?" she asked incredulously. "Fuck you."

"No, fuck _you_ if you think I'm either going to hold you here or let you go without getting something in return. _This_ is your _quid pro quo_ – if you help me out, you get to go free. I'll even see to it that your contract is paid in full."

"And if I don't?"

"Then when the police ask me if I know anything about how your body ended up in the desert, I'll tell them you broke into my house with the intention of killing me and my family on orders from RDA, and I did what I had to do to protect us." He gave that same, disturbing wry grin and added, "I'm sure by that point they'll have their hands full enough that they won't conduct the most thorough investigation to corroborate my version of events."

She tried another deep breath, wincing again, and said, "So once you're done, assuming the Soldiers haven't planned to outright kill whomever you handed over, you'll just let me go?"

"That's it," he replied with his hands held up.

She was quiet for a brief time, and then nodded her head. "Fine."

Abe stood, grabbed his golf bag, and said, "I'll get the doctors."

He hardly hurried up the stairs, but once they could hear the basement door close, Tseyo crawled over to her. She eyed him warily, and seemed to want to move away from him – although that was obviously a futile desire. He delicately brushed the cheek where Abe had struck her, and then untapped her shirt from her chest, helping it to fall back into place.

Tseyo whispered in her ear – Norm neither could hear it nor suspected she understood it – and then kissed her temple. He crawled back to sit beside Norm, and she kept her eyes locked on him throughout. Soon after he was resituated, however, she turned away and lowered her head.

Norm did not hesitate to ask Tseyo, "So now we're comforting the enemy?"

"Even enemies have their dignity," he replied. "If you try to take it from them, they'll do the same to you."

"So then why didn't you try to stop T'ngyute in the first place?"

"Why didn't you?" he quickly retorted. "You stopped us from killing T'ngyute. You stopped the crazy man."

He made several attempts to compose an answer, but they all fell flat. He could not explain how Jake's overstepping was any different than now, or how one man's insanity was different than Abe's singular focus on the sanctity of his family. Other than his half-hearted protests – though his disgust was certainly genuine – he had sat on his hands throughout this torturous interrogation. Eventually he just had to confess, "I don't know. Because this was different."

Tsyeo frowned in response.

Abe came back downstairs with Matthew, who carried a first aid kit. He lifted the woman's shirt and, upon seeing the bruise, asked, "Christ, what'd you hit her with?"

"A fairway wood," Norm answered dryly.

"Just make sure she's able to move," Abe said. "Then get her moved to the laundry room. We'll keep her there until we make our move in a few hours." On his way back upstairs, he added, "Also, Doctor, you're off the hook for the trade."

* * *

There was still a lot about her father that she did not know; much of it, she assumed, stuff that she was happier to not know. She could also not recall a time from her childhood that her father ever raised his voice to her, or commanded her away from him; however, when he ordered everybody but Norm and Tseyo out of the basement, she understood his tone well enough to go to the house's second floor, retreating into his study – her old room.

When she and her mother had transferred Abe's study from the basement to the second floor, Natalie had not paid much attention to what exactly it was they were moving. He did most of his work on carefully protected tablets, which he had stored away in locked cases before he left. Anything he did not want people to see beyond those was locked away in a safe in her parents' bedroom, which Natalie had never been given permission to open. She assumed her mother locked away whatever else she might have wanted to prevent Natalie from seeing long before they made the move. The only things left in the open in his study were volumes of old books whose contents had long ago been digitized.

She scanned the titles, much of them dense works of law and history – two subjects she was happy to leave behind in survey courses. Another shelf was dedicated to a yet more distasteful subject: philosophy. She never cared for other people's opinions of what life ought to mean to her, especially as the times in which they wrote were so radically different than hers.

Natalie saw one title that appeared more worn than the rest, although she was not sure if it was simply from its age or her father's repeated viewing. The binding was coming apart, the pages had yellowed with time, and there was a dark streak down the pages' center that was indicative of someone who repeatedly thumbed through them. Niccolò Machiavelli's, _The Prince_.

She took a book from the shelf and thumbed through the pages as her father, or someone, must have done many times before. Natalie was struck by another feature of the book: handwritten notes in the margins. At first, she thought it was desecration of an artifact. For all her love of Doctor Augustine's volumes on Pandora, she could never imagine recording the thoughts and questions they raised on the pages themselves!

The handwriting was unmistakably her father's; and as she turned page after page, she went from being horrified that he would mark the book in this manner to being awed by his questions and insights. Around halfway through, she came across unsettling annotations that had been made in thick, red ink atop older ones of thin black and blue. Where the philosopher had written:

"Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy."

All to which her father responded, "SecOps?"

Down the page, Machiavelli wrote:

"The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not; if they are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions; but if the captain is not skilful, you are ruined in the usual way."

Her father, "Quaritch or Parker?" And then below, underlined, "_Both?_"

She scanned a few more pages before she was interrupted. "We aren't going to have to lock you downstairs as a spy too, are we?"

Natalie looked towards the door, where Dawn was standing with a faint smile. She smiled back and said, "No, I'm just trying to get in Daddy's head."

"That had to suck," Dawn replied. "Having your dad literally light years away. I mean, there are distant parents, and then there's that."

"It was hard the first year or two," she said as she returned the book to the shelf. "Mom did a good job keeping things together. But yeah, once everything fell apart, I wanted him to be home more than anything else."

Dawn sat down and opened a locked tablet case. "Well, I think your dad's going to give that investigator a little payback for whatever RDA did to you and your mom."

Natalie frowned. When her father brought the woman into the basement, Natalie's stomach churned when she saw it was the supposed golfer from that morning. But then, as she had posed to her father, what was she supposed to have done about it – even if she had known? The world in which her parents operated was so foreign to her, it was hard for her to feel guilty about doing something wrong.

She sat down at her father's desk. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"The other night when you said you were tired of being blamed for what happened on Pandora, what did you mean by that?"

Dawn let out a short laugh and shook her head. "Not the question I was hoping for." She sighed and continued, "Our avatar got adopted by the Na'vi, and not long thereafter he, as you would expect, started getting propositions from the tribe's women. I was running communications that day when he called in for advice, and I suggested that he take a mate so the Na'vi wouldn't become suspicious as to why he kept rejecting their women."

"Couldn't he have just said he already had a mate?"

"That was the first plan, and it didn't work."

"Why not?"

Dawn shrugged. "They must not have believed him, or they thought that because she never showed up to claim him, he was abandoned."

Natalie nodded. "All right, so why was Daddy upset? I mean, you sound right. It'd be weird for a guy to keep refusing women."

Dawn appeared to be choosing her words carefully. "He thought it would be more of a distraction than reinforcement of his cover," she eventually replied. "It was a direct order, and your dad isn't a real fan of people going off script – but I guess you know that."

"Not really," she said. "He was a pretty cool dad to have, or that I remember."

"Yeah?" Natalie nodded. Dawn paused for a moment, and then said, "I guess I could see that."

They were quiet for a little while, and then Natalie tried to inject some levity to the discussion. "Well, I don't think you did anything wrong. I mean, if he still had a guy's brain in his body, I'm surprised he didn't blow his cover by sleeping with multiple women."

Dawn laughed. "Yeah, you drop a guy into a village of mostly naked girls, and what else do you expect?"

"It'd be torture to tell him, 'Look, but don't touch,'" she said with a wry grin. She then risked, only somewhat unconsciously, broaching the subject which had been lingering in her mind since the previous night. "But, you know, I don't know that I'd be immune in a village of warrior men."

Dawn let out a wistful sigh. "It was probably best that we didn't have video surveillance," she said with a smile. "_That_ would have been a distraction."

Trying not to betray her own thoughts, she asked, "So, what do you think of Tseyo?"

She appeared to hesitate, but then offered, "Not terrible. I mean, he's a bit lean, but he's got _those eyes_." Her smile turned into a grin, and she added, "Great butt, too."

Natalie chuckled and looked down when she felt her face become flush. She rubbed the back of her neck and said, "So you've also looked."

"How can you _not_?" There was a long pause before she asked, "But so far you've spent more time with him than anyone else. What do you think?"

"He's all right," she tried to say dispassionately. "He's nice. I think if he weren't so weirded out, he'd have a good sense of humor, too."

"He's been through a lot," she said after a deep breath. "You can't really blame him. But if he's relaxed around you, that's a good sign."

"A good sign of what?" Dawn's grin was too knowing. "No, it's not like that," she said dismissively.

Dawn chuckled and crossed her arms. "Who're you trying to lie to?"

"I'm not," she insisted. "He's not human," she said, trying to channel Norm's lecture from the morning. "He can't be interested."

"I'm not talking about him, I'm talking about you." She shrugged and said, "If you have a crush on him, then you have a crush on him. You just have to manage it. I mean, you're how old?"

"Twenty."

Dawn held a hand out as though she were presenting evidence. "Okay, so I'm sure you've had crushes on 'the impossible' guy before. What'd you do?"

She flirted with him, and he cheated on his girlfriend with her during their fifth period study hall for most of fall semester. "Nothing really. It just sort of ran its course until I lost interest," Natalie said.

"There you go. He's going to be gone tomorrow," she said with a slight shrug, "so if you can survive one more night, you'll be fine."

Natalie let out a nervous laugh. "You make it sound so easy."

She heard heavy footfalls come up the stairs, and a moment later her father entered the room. He appeared exhausted, but still gave her a soft smile. "Hey, Sweetie."

"Hi, Daddy."

"I think your mother's getting dinner started," he said. "Dawn and I still have some work to do, if you wouldn't mind leaving us alone for a bit."

She shook her head and stood from his desk. On her way out, he gently grabbed her hand and kissed her cheek. "You know I love you, right?" he asked.

Natalie smiled at him and kissed his cheek. "I love you, too." He smiled and nodded, and then let go of her hand.

* * *

Norm brought Tseyo his dinner and said, "This is the last of the food you brought, so I hope you enjoy it."

Tseyo replied with a grin, "It would be a shame if the last meal were a sour one."

He could not help but wince. "I wouldn't think of it as your _last_ meal. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow."

Tseyo took a breath and asked, "Are our enemies going to be any less cruel than _T'ngyute_ was to the woman?"

"It's not likely," Norm replied with a shake of his head. Tseyo just nodded, allowing for a long, awkward silence to take hold. It was broken when Norm asked, "I know you have a ritual ahead of battle. Do you need any help?"

Tseyo shook his head. "That's very kind of you, teacher, but I think I can perform it on my own." He took a breath and added, "I think I would like some time alone to make sure my energy is balanced."

"I understand," Norm said with a nod. "But don't be afraid to let me know if you need help."

"Thank you," he said. Before Norm turned to leave, however, Tseyo leaned forward and gave him a hug; which he very quickly returned. "Thank you for being a friend – to me and my people," Tseyo said quietly.

"I was happy to be," he replied. They held the embrace for a while, as he let Tseyo be the one to disengage first. They exchanged a smile, and then Norm headed upstairs to his designated room.

He entered just as Amy was stepping out of the bathroom, wiping her mouth. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said. "I just had to throw up."

Norm raised an eyebrow and replied, "That doesn't sound like you're fine."

Amy let out a short laugh and said, "I don't know why, but I always do before a major mission. I don't feel all that nervous, but it happens anyway." She grinned and said, "Relax, Norm. The timing isn't right for me to have morning sickness."

"That's not—," he was unable to finish the thought without laughing – as much in relief as in cueing off her humor, not that they had had anything close to an active sex life since her imprisonment. "All right, fair enough. I'll stand down."

"So how's the star of the show doing?"

"I think he's okay," Norm replied. "This is what he's been preparing for, so I think he's better now that the waiting is over."

"And how are you doing?" she asked more seriously.

He chuckled nervously. "Honestly? I think I'm ready to pass out, which is really kind of stupid when you think about it."

"I don't think it's stupid," Amy replied. "This is – There are a lot of risks."

Norm sat on the edge of the bed, and she sat beside him. "I know, but I vividly remember when Jake and I were planning the first fight against RDA. I mean, we had nothing to go on – not even close to the preparation that's gone into this plan – but I think I felt more confident about that than I do now." He sighed and added, "This feels right as a matter of principle, but I just can't shake this kind of uneasiness about the whole thing."

"Well," Amy began with a sigh, "much as I like him, it doesn't sound like Abe did a whole lot to inspire confidence."

His laugh was short and harsh. "Not at all." He shook his head and said, "I guess that's what's got me worried the most. It's not knowing what he's going to do if things go wrong."

"Not to add to your worries," she said, "but I think if things go wrong, it's not going to matter too much what he does."

"Yeah, that's not the most pleasant thought."

Amy casually took his hand in hers and said, "Listen, the best thing you can do right now is stop trying to think about what could happen tomorrow, and just focus on what we want to have happen. You're going to go crazy if you try to play all the variables at this point."

"I know," he replied. "It just seemed a lot simpler the first time around."

"Things change," she said with a light shrug of her shoulders. "You just have to roll with it."

He grinned, looked at her, and asked, "Is that the great secret of the War College, 'Just roll with it?'"

Amy chuckled and replied, "You know, for all the theories and strategies we went through, at the end of the day, that's kind of what it felt like. They always emphasized flexibility in planning, keeping options open, and maintaining strategic awareness. I think if you boiled down every great general's strategy, from Sun Tzu on, you would get, 'Just roll with it.'"

"I think that may explain a lot, actually," he said with a laugh. "But even though I know you haven't wanted to talk about it, I'd still like to know how you see us rolling out of all of this."

She paused for a few moments and looked away from him. He was certain that he was going to hear the same refrain, but instead she said, "Whatever happens tomorrow, I would like it if the day after tomorrow we could find somewhere that we can start to put all this crazy shit behind us."

Norm dared to smile. "You mean it?"

"I mean it," she said, squeezing his hand. "You still manage to annoy me," she added with a grin, "but then you always have. So I guess that means we're back to normal."

He put his arm around her shoulders and started to lean towards her, but then he let out a short laugh and said, "I really want to kiss you, but you just threw up."

Amy smiled and replied, "You don't _have_ to kiss me on the lips, if you don't want to."

"But that's the best place," he said, though he settled for her cheek and neck.

"I'm sure you could figure out some others if you put your mind to it," she said with a laugh as she put a hand on the back of his neck, encouraging him on.

It was not long before they settled into a familiar embrace, although for Norm it felt like it was a lifetime ago that they had last been so situated. Whether that did anything more to enhance the experience, Norm was not particularly concerned with knowing. By the time they were content to simply lay in each other's arms, and sleep overcame them, Norm was thinking much further out than tomorrow.

* * *

Tseyo sat on his knees and stared into the reflective wall mount. As when Natalie had captured his image, it took him a moment to become comfortable with the clarity of his reflection. Just on a whim, he reached out to see if the Sky People had devised a method by which he was actually looking at a replica of himself; but when his fingers made contact with the slick, cold surface – not the warm flesh of the fingers which had reached back towards him – he actually felt relief.

He withdrew his fingers, took a deep breath, and made the short crawl over to the large, river-catching basin. Tseyo had already placed the paint-containing seeds beside the basin, and next to them he laid two stones he had brought with him for this ritual. One was pumice stone, plentiful on the plains near his home, and the other was a sharp, thick flint that had been gifted to him before his departure.

He filled the basin for the second time today, except now with warmer water. He stripped away every item of clothing, leaving himself totally naked, and then entered the basin on his knees. Tseyo cupped his hands to gather water, and then released it over his head. He repeated this several times as he quietly sang, "Eywa, your child is calling, / He needs your shelter. / He has been sent from the warmth of home, / So that he may face the predators which threaten. / May you make the jungle kind to him, / So that he may quickly strike them down. / Then he will go home; / Then he will rest."

Tseyo took the pumice stone and began to scrub his skin, occasionally stirring the stone in the water to keep it from feeling too abrasive. When he learned this ritual from the elders, they said it was to be sure the jungle's predators would not catch his scent. In the back of his mind, he thought it was so his friends and loved ones would remember him more purely in the event he was carried home as tattered flesh.

When he felt confident that his skin was clean, he brought the flint to his scalp. He took a handful of hair, took a deep breath, and then began to cut it away. Tseyo repeated this until all that remained was the braided hair protecting his queue; although when he ran his hand over the now-exposed scalp, he was disappointed to feel a few patches the flint had missed.

Twice more he doused his body with water, and then he let the basin drain. He remembered what Norm had told him about the Sky People's obsession with preventing water from drying on its own; so he reached for one of the large, thickly woven cloths that was beside the basin, and then he stood and began to dry himself off. As he did this, he turned and was startled to see Natalie standing in the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame.

"Natalie?" he prompted when her eyes did not meet his. In fact, he wondered if she was entirely aware that he was looking at her.

She came out of her long stare and, looking him in the eyes, weakly smiled and said, "Sorry. I, um, I wasn't watching for long."

He gave her a knowing grin, and then discarded the cloth for his loincloth and other clothes. "Did my singing bother you again?" he asked.

"No, you left the door open," she said casually. "Why did you cut your hair off?"

"It's just the ritual," he said with a shrug.

She stepped into the room. "Let me see." Tseyo sat cross-legged in front of her, making him somewhat shorter than her, and lowered his head. He was surprised by how delicate her hands felt against his skin, as though the skin had never been worked. "You missed some places," she said lightly, as though to joke rather than criticize.

He scoffed and replied, "The stone loses sharpness after the first few cuts."

"Come over here," she said, walking towards the reflective mount and the small basin beneath. "I can help with that."

"You don't have to—," he said half-heartedly, even though he did not hesitate to follow her.

Natalie pressed against the reflective surface harder than he had, and it popped open to reveal small compartments behind it. From the compartments, she withdrew a canister and small, stick-like instrument. Tseyo reached for it and immediately thought it was going to snap in his fingers. His puzzlement must have been apparent to her, because she insisted, "It'll work." She ran a hand over her own, bald head and said with a grin, "See? I have practice."

Tseyo smiled and handed her the instrument, and then he lowered his head for her once again. He heard an airy noise, like someone breathing harshly into a hollow chamber, and then she began to rub his head with a cold, light-feeling liquid. Natalie then carefully drew the instrument over his scalp.

His only hesitation throughout the process was when she got close to his queue. His body tensed up in his nervousness, but Natalie put a hand on his shoulder and said reassuringly, "I know. I'll be careful."

"I trust you will be," he replied, even though he remained wary as she worked around it.

When she finished, he ran his hand over his scalp and nodded his approval. She smiled and said, "I told you it would work."

He smiled back at her. "Thank you," he said. "While you're here, could you help me with something else?"

"What is it?"

Tseyo reached behind him and brought forward the paint. "I would like it very much if you did this for me."

Natalie appeared to hesitate, and then she replied, "I don't know if I can."

"Why not?"

"I wouldn't want to ruin your ritual," she replied. "Or make you look silly."

He grinned and chuckled. "I'm sure you won't make me look silly," he replied as he shifted to sit on his knees, bringing his height closer to hers. "This part has no ritual. You just paint what you see."

Natalie took a breath, and then nodded. She also quickly lifted off her shirt and set it aside. "That's one of my favorites," she said. "I don't want to get it messy."

She turned to face him, took another breath, and asked, "Are you sure you're comfortable with having me do this?"

He nodded. "It's just what you see."

Natalie hesitated again, but then stepped forward and ran her hands over his cheeks. "It's going to be a shame to cover your freckles," she said with a smile.

"I have many," he said with a grin. "It will be okay."

She filled the small basin with water, and then started with the orange-yellow paint, carefully painting circles around his eyes. She then extended lines from them to highlight the edges of his nose, and then followed his cheek bone back to his ears. Washing her hands between colors, Natalie then liberally applied red paint to his scalp and head above the orange paint, and then used the black to cover his jaw and lower cheeks.

He grinned and said, "There's more to me than just my head, you know."

"You have a lot of paint," she replied. Then she gave him a wry grin and added, "And I know you do – I saw you a moment ago."

Tseyo chuckled. "It's very rude to watch someone and not announce yourself," he said in a mocking seriousness. She only widened her grin in response.

Natalie dipped her hand in the purple paint and then pressed it against his chest. She held it there for a moment, and then said with a soft smile, "You have a very nice heart."

"Thank you."

From the center of his chest, Natalie drew thick, diagonal lines to his shoulders, and then continued them along his arms down to his elbows. She filled the triangle which this created over his sternum with red, and then outlined the bottom of the v-shape with the yellow-orange.

As she painted him, he could not help but focus on the delicate touch of her hands, and the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed. Their eyes met several times during the process, and each time she would stop to give him a slight smile; each time, he did not hesitate to return it.

She added black bands over the purple on his upper arms; and at that, she stepped back from him and looked towards the reflective surface. "Take a look."

The instant before he turned to look, his mind recalled the reflection he had seen just a short while earlier. What he saw was so dramatically different that he needed a moment to reconcile the two images. He took a deep breath and carefully ran his fingers over Natalie's work.

"Is it okay?" she asked, her tone somewhat reticent.

"I do," he replied. Tseyo moved his hand over the chevron she had made on his chest and said, "This is a very important symbol for my people. It represents _ikran_."

Setting aside his reservations against falling for vanity, he spent a while longer examining his new visage. Tseyo was so absorbed, in fact, that he was genuinely surprised when he felt Natalie grab his tail and run her hand along its length. He quickly turned and saw that she had painted it red.

Natalie grinned deviously at him and said, "That's for making fun of me for liking your tail."

When the surprise of her act wore off, Tseyo could not help but laugh, almost to the point of tears.

"I didn't think it was _that_ funny," she said.

He gathered himself together and replied, "No, but it's another symbol of my people that, I think, goes against the joke you meant."

Natalie raised her brow. "Oh?"

Tseyo nodded. "In our dances, if a man's tail is painted red, it means his character possesses _txurina'_ – virility."

She paused for a moment, and then buried her face in her hand and muttered something in her native tongue, causing Tseyo to laugh further. "I didn't know!" she said when she let her hand drop to her side, her face flush.

He grinned and asked, "If you did, would you have done it anyway?"

"Don't tease me," she replied, gently pushing his shoulder.

Tseyo caught her hand as she withdrew it and said, "Maybe I'm not teasing you this time."

He waited for her to turn her wrist in his hand as she had done the other night, but she made no such protest. Instead, she looked him in the eyes and said quietly, "I thought we were supposed to stop."

"We should," he said. "But it's been difficult for you, hasn't it?" She nodded. "Why? It can't just be the dance we shared."

"It's not," she said. Natalie paused to take a breath. "The way you've treated me is a way I haven't been treated in a long time. It's affected me very much. And then there's what you said last night."

He cocked his head. "What did I say last night?"

"That if I were Na'vi, you would be happy to be my suitor. Did you mean it, or were you just trying to convince me to leave you – these feelings – alone?"

Tseyo was reluctant to answer, but he took a breath and said, "I meant it. You would be a very beautiful woman in my tribe."

She reached out to brush his cheek. "If you were courting me, and I were uncertain about choosing you, what would you say to me?"

He thought about what he had planned to say to Naw'ngié the day he asked to be her suitor. He smiled and put a hand over hers. "I'd tell you that I would always be at your side. If you were hungry, I would go hunt. If you were sick, I would bring you medicine. And though I would hope you would never be sad, if you were, I would be there to comfort you. We would have healthy children, and they would grow up to be strong warriors."

"That sounds wonderful," she said quietly, her thumb rubbing his cheek. "I'd be happy to choose you as my mate."

Natalie slowly, but deliberately moved her hand back to the base of his queue. Picking up on her intentions, Tseyo took a breath and reached behind himself to take hold of the unique, significant part of his being, and brought it forward. He held the end of it between them, and in that instant the sheath parted to reveal the bonding tendrils. Unlike the first night he had shown them to her, however, they now glowed brilliantly in anticipation of a strong bond. Whatever reservations he held about her advances in his mind, the energy in his body was in opposition.

She appeared to notice the difference as well. Natalie very delicately put her hands over his, and brought the queue to her chest. He expected his queue to sheathe again, but instead the tendrils' undulations ceased, and she took in a sharp breath when they seemed to stick to her skin. It was the only sign he needed.

Tseyo leaned forward and kissed her. But where last night he was simply hoping to mitigate her desire for him, now he was earnest. Natalie was hardly reluctant herself. They both kept a hand on his queue, hers over his; but her other hand she placed on his neck, while he held her by the waist. It was pleasant, and he did not want to break it off too soon. However, there was a critical element missing before he could accept this as a bond.

He kissed around her cheek until he got to her ear, into which he whispered, "Tell me what you're feeling, now."

"Desire," she whispered back. "And fear."

"Fear of what?"

Her voice began to crack. "Of what's going to happen to you tomorrow." She moved so that their brows rested together, so that their eyes had no choice but to meet. Hers were beginning to well with tears. "I don't want you to get hurt, Tseyo."

"I won't," he replied. "But tomorrow has to happen."

"Will you promise that we'll see each other again?"

"I promise."

They kissed again, and then he stood up – an act which forced the impromptu bond to break. He continued to hold her hand, however, and the two walked out to his hammock. Tseyo crawled in first, and then she came in and lay atop him. It was then that he had to confront another reality of the gross differences in their bodies. Though they were eye-to-eye, her feet were barely past his waist; and though he did not have the broad-shouldered musculature that many of his brother warriors did, her narrow frame easily fit inside his.

He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand and said, "I don't want to hurt you, Natalie."

"I know you won't," she said with a smile.

They embraced again, and then laid themselves bare for each other – or, as he mused, given her furtive observation of him earlier in the night, she finally responded in kind for him. It was readily apparent to both that, in yet another way, a traditional bonding between them was out of the question. Still, as they gave each other great permission to explore their mutually alien bodies, they found ways to satisfy their partner.

Exhaustion set in, but before Natalie fell asleep on his chest, Tseyo said, "We both know it would not end well if we were to be discovered like this."

She sighed and shook her head. "No, it wouldn't."

They collected their clothes, and he followed her into her room. When she settled into her bed, he leaned over to share one more kiss for the night. She looked up at him and said, "Norm said it would be impossible for you to fall in love with me."

He responded, "Norm is a great teacher, and he has also been a good student of my people." Then he grinned and added, "But he doesn't know _everything_."

Tseyo left her room, careful to close the door behind him. He returned to his hammock to catch what little sleep he could before either Norm or Abe roused him for the battle to come. He felt that he could be justified in being afraid of what tomorrow might bring, but that fear never came. Instead, he fell into an easy sleep. Far from fearing the next day, he was eager for it to come.

* * *

tl;dr – Abe tortures information out of Jude and compels her to accept being the team's hand-over to the Soldiers of Gaia. Dawn tries to help Natalie through her crush. Norm and Amy recommit to each other. Natalie and Tseyo become more intimate.


	23. Execution, Part I

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – Sorry for the delay, all. It's been busy at work again. I have no guarantee of a regular update schedule from here on.

* * *

Abe was up before Krysta; by the quiet in the house, it seemed he was up before everyone. When he stepped out of bed for the bathroom, he did manage to rouse Vertex from his slumber at the foot of their bed. Abe leaned down to give him a quick scratch behind the ears, to Vertex's apparent approval, before continuing on with his routine.

He showered, shaved away the five-o-clock shadow which he had let linger since Sunday evening, and carefully groomed his hair, trimming and plucking as necessary. In assuming the role of a confident, senior executive, no detail was too small.

When it came time for his suit, however, he encountered his first disappointment. Abe had only brought casual business clothes with him to Pandora – nothing that he would not be able to clean and press on his own, such was the case with the white shirt he donned. He had not paid too much attention while his shirts and slacks became loose around his chest and waist; but when he tried one of the tailored suits he had left behind, he realized just how much weight he had lost in the course of his odyssey.

The black Italian suit's woolen pants needed someone with another four inches on his waistline to fit properly, and the jacket felt a size too large around his chest. The suit's ill fit bothered him, but there was certainly nothing which could be done about it at this point, short of pulling his belt tight. He tied the matching gold and black striped tie in a perfect double Windsor knot, and then sat on his side of the bed to brush his leather shoes off before slipping into them. Abe was relieved when they fit properly.

To complete the look, he withdrew a gold, mechanical watch from the nightstand drawer. It was one of Krysta's earliest anniversary presents to him. In an age of digital and holographic devices, it was damned near impossible to find mechanical watches. Abe had yet to find a replica amongst the few retailers who carried such devices, which was one reason he assumed she bought it – not so much for the novelty or aesthetic appeal, but to keep him guessing.

After he clasped the watch to his wrist, Abe took a breath and looked over at Krysta, who was still fast asleep. He decided she did not need to be woken up, not yet, and quietly made his way downstairs. He was surprised to see Amy dressed and in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee. "You're up early," he commented.

"Likewise," she said with a grin. "Nice suit."

He shrugged, again feeling the space in the jacket. "Not the best fit," he said as he went for the coffee machine, "but I don't have a tailor on call."

"I'm sure you'll live."

"Here's hoping, right?" he offered with a short laugh. "Is anybody else up?"

"Norm is, but he's with Tseyo. I haven't seen or heard anybody else."

Abe nodded. "We can give them a few more minutes." He stirred two packets of artificial sugar into the imitation coffee, forgoing packets of dehydrated cream powder, and then sat at the kitchen's island to quietly drink the hot, aromatic brew. Amy sat across from him with her own mug and a few slices of toast.

Norm came upstairs with Tseyo a little while later, the latter of whose body painting took Abe aback. Tseyo's head had also been completely painted, but those designs were somewhat obscured by the exopack mask. He wore. "He's just wearing it until Bay Point," Norm said. "It wouldn't be great if he became lightheaded in the middle of the mission."

"No, it wouldn't," Abe said flatly. Despite Abe's insistence that his team undertake this mission without weapons, he saw the dagger on Tseyo's belt, which was accompanied by a small bag and what looked like an oversized dart blower. Abe was inclined to raise the issue, but he doubted it that he would succeed in convincing Tseyo to give up the weaponry.

He took the last sip of his coffee and then proceeded back upstairs to wake the others, sharing an awkward moment when he found Luke and Dawn had moved into the same bad. Before going back downstairs, he went to his study and gathered his essential tools for the mission – his forged identification, the template for his Soldier accompanier, and his work tablet – into his leather suitcase. Abe also took six earpiece communicators that he and Norm had purchased when they went into town. He performed a quick coordinating check to ensure they were operating on the same frequency, and then dropped them into his pocket.

The rest of the team assembled and had a very light, conversation-less breakfast in those early morning hours. Abe checked the time – a quarter past four – and then addressed the team. "We're going to get going. Myself, Colonel Hall, and Luke will take 'Miss Adams' in her car, while Norm, Tseyo, Dawn, and Doctor Cook take the minivan. Does that work?" They nodded. "Then I'll meet you all in the garage. Colonel, Luke, I'll trust you can escort Miss Adams from the laundry room."

While the group made their way to the vehicles – Bethany's rental car having been requisitioned the prior evening – Abe headed back upstairs for a final time. Krysta was still sleeping when he delicately sat on her side of the bed. He placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze to wake her. She turned over as she opened her eyes, and he smiled at her. "Hey, beautiful," he said.

Krysta reached up and touched his cheek. "This is it, huh?" she replied. He nodded, and she sat up to embrace him. Abe held her close, making small circles on the soft skin of her shoulders with his thumbs. Though Krysta had years earlier been forced to give up the fragrant, luxury perfumes which he remembered her for, her skin and hair still smelled sweet to him. They shared a long kiss, and then she said, "Make sure you see Natalie before you go."

"You know I will." She nodded and, after another kiss, settled back into the bed.

He made his way down to the basement. The hammock which had been strung up along the rest of the room on Tseyo's was once more been tied into a kind of satchel, containing the rest of Tseyo's few belongings. Natalie's door was closed.

Abe rapped a knuckle on the doorframe to see if she was already awake. When there was no response, he carefully, quietly opened her door. Natalie was tangled up in her bedsheets, apparently having had a restless sleep. He knelt beside her and brushed his hand over her forehead. She stirred and opened her eyes, then smiled and said, "Hi, Daddy."

He smiled back at her, letting his hand settle on her cheek. "Hey, Sweetie," he quietly replied. "I'm going, now."

"I know," she said, placing a hand over his.

Abe took a deep breath and said, "I'm sure this isn't how you pictured me coming home, because this isn't how I wanted to come home. But I promise that, after today, you're going to be the only thing on my mind, okay?" She nodded, and he leaned forward to kiss her brow. "I'm so proud of you."

Natalie sat up enough to wrap her arms around him, and he did not hesitate to respond. It only took a few moments before he felt her begin to shudder in his arms, and he felt the warmth of tears against his skin. "Please come home, Daddy," she said. "I've missed you so much."

"I will," he replied. "I promise."

They held each other for a while longer, and then he kissed her cheek – unable to ignore the salt-like taste – and then let her go. He stood to leave, when Natalie reached out and took his hand. "Keep Tseyo safe, too," she said.

Abe gave her hand a squeeze and nodded. "We need him," he replied with a slight grin. "He'll be all right."

Natalie nodded, and then slowly settled back into her bed, releasing his hand. "Goodbye, Daddy."

"Bye, Sweetie."

He closed her door behind him, and then quickly made his way to the garage. Both cars were already started, and Abe got into the shotgun seat of the rental car. Amy sat in the driver's seat, while Luke – his lower lip swollen – kept Bethany under guard in the backseat. Abe's car took the lead of the small caravan, and they followed the same route as two days ago.

The only conversation they had was when Abe said to Bethany, "I hope you've already figured out it's in your best interests to keep your mouth shut."

"And why's that?"

"Because I think the only people they could possibly hate more than RDA's executives are its contractors," he replied. "They'll probably just force me to hand over one of my legitimate people, but they'll certainly kill you out of hand." Abe shrugged and added, "I could be wrong, but it strikes me as an unnecessary risk to try it out."

They were quiet for the rest of the way.

Despite the early hour, there was a steady, light stream of traffic headed towards San Francisco – the laborers who would be preparing office buildings for the white collared professionals, truckers carrying goods to markets, merchants getting a head start on opening their stores.

In the direction they were heading, however, traffic was almost non-existent. As such, it was not hard to figure the identity of the motorcyclist who raced up along their side several miles outside Modesto. Unlike before, it was not a small gang of armed escorts – just the lone biker. Abe looked over to Amy and said, "Be prepared to start driving."

She nodded and gripped the wheel just in time for the car's computer to announce, "Manual drive engaged. Please drive safely."

They followed the motorcyclist down the same poorly maintained road to the Soldiers' commandeered barn, and Abe was not surprised to see a slightly larger contingent of Soldiers than there had been when Abe was first brought here. They did not, however, seem as hostile.

Abe and his team were still deliberately commanded out of their vehicles at gunpoint; but when Tseyo emerged, a number of Soldiers broke out in applause to the apparent surprise of the Na'vi warrior, if not also Abe.

Their commander, however, was quick to put an end to their homage. "Shut up!" a large man shouted. "We're on an operation. Keep your shit together." He approached Abe and said, "Deal's a deal, Scheller. Who are you exchanging?"

Abe looked over at Bethany and said, "Her."

"Why her?"

"Why not?" Abe retorted as Luke walked her forward. "The deal was one of my people for one of yours. I wasn't asked to justify it."

"If you want our support…" the man began to growl.

Abe cut him off. "If _you_ want to take down RDA today, then accept her."

The man looked about ready to hit Abe, but he relented. "She looks pissed," he commented.

"Yeah, well, none of us are particularly happy about this."

"No shit?" He sighed. "All right, fine." He turned and snapped his fingers, and a young woman emerged from a parked, large delivery van. She was dressed in a business suit, unlike her uniformed and dressed-down colleagues. "This is our operative, Ashley. If she thinks you're trying to fuck us over, you're dead."

If the commander had hoped to be intimidating, he only served to make Abe angrier. "I hope she doesn't have a weapon," Abe said tersely. "That'd going to make it difficult to get through the first layer of security."

"I can take care of myself without a gun, Scheller," Ashley said.

"We'll see," he replied. He pulled out the semi-complete forgery RDA badge from his leather case and said, "Since none of you told me what this person was going to look like, I haven't completed her badge. So unless you have a workshop nearby…"

Ashley interrupted Abe's line of thought when she casually pulled back her suit jacket to reveal a perfect RDA badge attached to her belt. "You're not the only one who can make RDA knock-offs," she said.

Abe paused to examine the badge's quality before he put away his own forgery. "Good to know." He nodded at the van and asked, "Is this ours?"

The Soldiers' commander nodded. "Short of a small truck, it should hold your people well enough."

Abe turned to Dawn and said, "Get its specs, and put it in RDA's delivery logs."

"Got it, Boss," Dawn said as she carried her own tablet over to the van and prepared a delivery form. In the meantime, at the commander's indication, Soldiers stepped forward and escorted Bethany back to other waiting vehicles.

"When Ashley gives us the word that your operation is complete," the commander said, "we'll talk about the next exchange."

"Keep her alive," Abe said flatly. "I'm not big into double-crosses."

"Neither are we," the commander replied. "Don't screw us, and we won't screw you."

When Dawn came back from the van, Abe huddled the group together. He gave each a communicator, while placing one in his ear. "All right, here's the chain-of-command. Norm is in charge of the assault team. Amy is his backup. Dawn's running control for all of us." He looked at Norm and said, "Wait here until you get the word from either me or Dawn."

"How long will that be?" he asked as he put in the earpiece.

"Seven's my guess," Abe replied. "It'll take about an hour and a half for me to get to Sacramento, then maybe a bit of a wait for the first high-speed. Once I'm onboard the train, I'll tell you to start moving."

"And if we don't hear from you?"

Abe took a breath. "If you haven't heard from me by nine-o-clock, get out of here," he said. "Get as far away as you can." He nodded at Dawn and said, "Is the virus ready?"

"Ready."

"Launch it when you get back to my house." He looked around the team. "Are we good?" They nodded. "Let's go."

The Soldiers broke at the same time as the team. Dawn drove the minivan back to his house, while the rest of the team gathered in the delivery van. Once he and Ashley entered the rental car, she asked him, "Want to explain why we're going to Sacramento and not straight to RDA?"

"Because we want to enter Bay Point from the employee train entrance with hundreds of others," Abe replied. "Hoping our virus does its job, the guards there will be too overwhelmed from the manual checks to notice the imperfections on our badges."

She scoffed. "Maybe your badge is imperfect," she said. "You'd better not blow it for all of us."

Abe chose not to respond. He programmed the car's route to the Sacramento, requested the news station, and settled in for a tense drive.

* * *

She had tried to go back to sleep after her father had woken her for his farewell in the hopes that doing so would help dull the impact his leaving had on her. It was wishful thinking at best. Natalie stayed awake until her alarm went off, and then remained in bed for a while after. Vertex, her warm-bodied alarm clock, hurried downstairs not long after the alarm sounded and did his best to rouse her.

Natalie was not only kept in her bed by a deep fear for her father's well-being, but the ramifications of her rendezvous with Tseyo the night before. When they first met – rather, when he simply emerged as a part of her life – she was happy to find that she was able to settle into a friendship with the object of her childhood affections. What had surprised her was how quickly she felt that happiness turn into more serious emotions.

Natalie had hoped that their idle conversation and proximity would settle any deeper longings. When that only served to inflame passion, she had hoped being adventurous might ultimately rid her of further desires. However, it took her a while after she settled into bed to realize just how far she had let herself explore. It was then that everything Norm had said to her that morning began to flood her thoughts, and she became restless.

With little enthusiasm, Natalie did her best to keep up a normal morning. The chances of that diminished, however, as soon as she stepped out of her room. Tseyo's hammock had been taken down and tied into a satchel. It was as though he were planning to come back, briskly pick up his belongings, and head home. He had not come into her room to say goodbye. Had he divulged more to Norm and was so prevented from doing so? Was he expecting to say goodbye later? What were they going to say to each other?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Vertex's whimpers, and so she set them aside to tend to his needs. Even he seemed eager to try and reestablish some normalcy. After Natalie brought Vertex back inside from his own morning business.

Max was in the kitchen, standing beside the microwave, when she went upstairs to put Vertex outside. "Good morning, Doctor," she said.

He smiled and nodded at her. "Good morning, Natalie." The microwave beeped, and he opened the door to withdraw a freezer pastry. "You know, despite all the fresh food on Pandora, I still love these."

"They can be addictive," she said as Vertex rushed past her and out the open door. Natalie eyed the still-broken kitchen window, and she felt a tinge of guilt for having been so naïve to have let the enemy into the house. Natalie was sure that it must have been a stroke of luck that ultimately allowed her to be captured. "So, what are you going to do with the others gone?"

"Once I know that they've accomplished their part of the mission, I'm going to release Grace's field notes to the public," he said. "And then I'm getting the hell out of Dodge."

"You think it's going to be bad?"

"I know I don't want to be here to find out," he replied. "But really, I just want to go home and see what's left of the family."

"You're married?"

Max shook his head and bit into the microwaved breakfast. "Parents and siblings," he said with his mouth full. "They usually don't let people with spouses and kids go to Pandora." She raised an eyebrow at him and, a moment later, Max swallowed and said, "Sorry."

Natalie just shrugged. "Where's home?"

"Rockville, Maryland," he said before he ate the rest of the pastry. "Know it?" She shook her head. "It's outside Washington, D.C."

Vertex barked at the door, and Natalie let him back inside. She was filling his food dish when Dawn came in from the garage. Natalie raised her brow in curiosity and asked, "What are you doing back here?"

"Running control," she said as she set up a pseudo-workstation on the dining table. "So far, so good – but then, we've only just started."

Max left the kitchen with a slight nod, and a second pastry precariously held between his teeth, and Natalie sat beside Dawn. "Honestly, what's the chance that this succeeds?"

Without looking up from her work, Dawn replied, "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told your dad, 'It's too late to worry about that.' You've just got to go with it."

"Knowing my dad—," she had to pause to consider the statement. "Well, from what I can tell, he's at least prepared for things to go wrong. I want to be, too. So, how prepared should I be?"

Dawn did not answer immediately as she flew through a multitude of windows on her tablet, most of which displayed a programming language which Natalie could not even begin to comprehend. Eventually she said solemnly, "You may want to get a bag together."

Her stomach lurched. "A bag?"

"Keep it to essentials. Something you could easily carry on and off a train or plane, like you were going away for a weekend." Dawn added after taking another moment to concentrate on her work. "You probably want your passport, too."

"Where is this weekend getaway?"

Dawn sighed and looked up at her. "Natalie, I get that you're nervous, but getting into the weeds won't help. Sitting around and waiting to launch an emergency plan will only ratchet up your stress. Your dad made arrangements. Leave it at that."

"I don't know that I couldn't be any more stressed than I am right now," she replied. "Daddy's kept me in the dark on so much, I barely know what I'm supposed to be worried about."

"I'm pretty sure your dad kept you in the dark because he didn't want you to worry about the details," Dawn said. "I don't disagree."

"So I'm just supposed to sit here and do—?"

"Start making your escape bag," she replied. Dawn held up a hand and said, "I'm not saying you're going to need it, but even preparing it might put your mind at ease."

"I doubt it," she said with a short laugh.

Dawn frowned and returned to the work on her tablet. A few moments of silence passed before Natalie got up the will to walk away from the table and go about preparing for her escape. However, when she stood up , Dawn asked, "So, did you make it through the night?"

It took Natalie a moment to recall the conversation she had with Dawn the night before, and then her stomach turned. Far from being resilient and quietly suffer through another night of angst so that the fire in her body would die out, as Dawn had recommended, Natalie had allowed herself to be consumed.

She looked up to the second floor hallway to be sure her mother was not hovering nearby, and then Natalie said, "I think I made a mistake."

"How so?" Natalie was about to answer, but Dawn stopped her by holding up a hand. She then pressed on the earpiece she wore and said, "I'm here, Boss." Natalie strained herself to try and hear her father's voice on the other side, but there was no chance of it. The seemingly one-sided conversation continued. "It's doing its thing, and no signs we've been had. Where are you? This early, huh? Hold on. It looks like you could make the six-forty, but I'd guess the seven-o-clock. Roger that, Boss – ten minutes."

Dawn took her hand away from the earpiece and turned to look at Natalie. "So, what kind of mistake?"

* * *

The morning sky was a dull grey ahead of the sunrise. Despite this early hour, outside and half a mile below James Savage's window, San Francisco was coming to life. The RDA chief executive officer, and chairman of its board of directors, stood in front of a wall with an array of screens, each serving as a window to a specific set of information.

There were screens for national news, world stock markets, employee workstream data, and real-time budget tracking. There was a screen that synthesized the most important developments of all the others, and then an applet to consolidate the information on that screen. In among all of this information, there was a screen dedicated to daily reports filed by the heads of RDA's divisions. Chairman Savage flipped quickly through these reports in search for the only one he was concerned with reading: the report from his chief of Asset Management and Information Security.

Upon finding the document, he stopped to parse out every detail. It was not difficult to do – there were few details. The chairman grumbled and pulled up the responsible executive's profile on his screen, and then pushed a button to call his office. Less than a second later, Franklin Ashworth was on his screen – still tying his tie. "Good morning, Mister Chairman. What can I do for you?"

"You can tell me why your daily is so light," he said. "Your investigator has been on this for a couple of days, and we have as much information as when we started." He did not need to spell out which case he was referring to. There was only one priority for him.

"I didn't get a field report last night," the executive replied. "I've been trying for the last few hours to get one, but the asset has been unreachable."

"Seems to raise a red flag, don't you think?"

"Yes, sir," he said. "If I can't get a report by nine, we'll go to our next option."

Savage raised an eyebrow. "You didn't tell me you had a backup plan."

"SecOps has a strike team on standby to raid his home," Franklin replied. "I also have the ear of a sympathetic judge. California Highway Patrol has to be the one to get a search warrant and accompany us, but we'll be able to take the lead on the raid and seal evidence under the Economic Protection Act."

"Is it an issue to bring in local police?" he asked.

Franklin shook his head. "We've had a representative on their warrant enforcement and service team for a while. They know when and when not to poke around too much."

"Why didn't you do this first?"

"Because sending in what's essentially a SWAT team to a high-class gated community is an incredibly public event," the executive said. "I'm meeting with Janet later this morning to work the spin."

"And if Abe isn't there?"

"He's there," Franklin replied flatly. "I have no doubts about it. I'm sure whatever loose ends exist are also there. One giant package."

Savage took a breath and said, "All right, to hell with your asset. It hasn't been much of an asset anyway, just a waste of time. Go with the strike team – unless you have a good reason to wait."

Franklin seemed to hesitate. "Well, sir, I just want to say again that if we go this route, we're very likely going to miss the chance to learn what got him worked up in the first place. That would be a lingering risk."

"Whatever got him to turn traitor is up on Pandora," Savage replied sternly. "And it won't be long before we have that planet taken care of. We're not playing around anymore, Franklin. No holds barred. We're getting our arms around this situation once and for all."

"Yes, sir."

"Anything else?"

"Did you have a chance to look over last night's security report?"

"Not yet."

"Soldiers of Gaia put out a scapecast yesterday, a call to arms against us," Franklin said. "The feedback was pretty strong."

Savage snorted, "The soggies are always railing against RDA. What's the issue this time?"

Franklin chuckled. "I tried to listen to all of it, but it was practically incoherent – mostly language that only Soldiers would understand. There was no issue in particular, I think they just want to let us know that they're still alive."

"There's nothing new about that," the chairman replied. An alphabet soup's worth of national and international organizations were hunting down the Soldiers' leadership following a wave of terrorist acts in the last decade. Nobody in their right minds could doubt that the Soldiers were anything but alive. "Why's it in the security report?"

"Their call to arms involves a demonstration outside the compound," Franklin replied. "Based on the feedback they got in the virtualscape, we're estimating a crowd of a few hundred. Since the Soldiers' demonstrations almost always turn ugly. SFPD will have a presence to watch the crowd, but we're going to back them up with our own security."

"When are they starting?"

"They're already outside or checkpoints, harassing our employees as they come in." He reached off-screen and, with a crooked grin, held up a shirt and tie with fresh-looking coffee stains. "I can already report one arrest for disorderly conduct," he said.

Savage chuckled and asked, "You didn't take a company car in this morning?"

"I was here late and went out to get a cup of coffee, since the cafeteria won't open for another fifteen minutes." He shook his head and said with a short laugh, "To make the morning even better, the damned facial recognition security system broke down in the lobby, so the guards have to make all the ID checks manually. It took me ten minutes to get through the line."

The chairman had a renewed appreciation for his penthouse on the compound's property. "Well, it sounds like you've got a great start to a busy day. Call me when the strike team is launched – interrupt whatever I'm doing. I want to come down and monitor it myself."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

"No. See you later." He disconnected the call and then brought up the security report Franklin had referenced. It painted an unflattering picture of the content of the Soldiers' broadcast, but it highlighted the fact that it was delivered by none other than the Monk, the Soldiers' deranged leader. Succumbing to a sudden, morbid curiosity, Savage opened up the scapecast recording that was appended to the security report.

Even though the chairman had seen many photos and recordings of the Monk, he was always taken aback by the man's appearance, his stare that seemed to penetrate past the screen and bore into his head. The virtualscape which the Monk had created for this particular broadcast was of an old growth forest, something which had not naturally existed for more than a century.

He held his hand out towards the screen – towards the chairman – and said, "Fire is the origin of light." At that moment, a ball of fire appeared in his hand. "From the greatest star to the most humble encampment of our ancestors, fire is what allows us to see our world. It is also the greatest of our mother's tools to purify, to perfect creation. The greatest fires can bring down the most stubborn obstacles. Now is the time for us to bring forth the fire of righteousness, to illuminate the world and cast out the darkness which keeps us from seeing the world as it is meant to be seen."

Barely fifteen second in to a twenty minute broadcast, the chairman had his fill of the propaganda. He closed the broadcast and went to his desk to review the day's agenda. Except for his expectation to be interrupted for the raid on Abe's base of operations, he did not find anything outside of the routine.

That was fine by him.


	24. Execution, Part II

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

Norm stopped pacing to lean against the side of the van for the eleventh time. Nobody had said much of anything in the last half hour, having drifted off to separate locations in the barn, each lost in their own thoughts. The space and silence among them left only the hum of electricity to fill the void. It struck Norm as torture by white noise.

Luke, leaning against the van's driver-side door, was the nearest person to him. Without prompting, Luke asked, "Did you ever think we'd be coming back here like this?"

Norm snorted and replied, "I didn't think I'd be coming back at all." It was a true statement. Even though he and the others at Hell's Gate had spent years preparing for RDA's return, Norm had fully expected an unstoppable armada to descend and overwhelm them.

"I guess I felt the same way," Luke said with a nod. "I mean, we had everything up there."

He took a deep breath and said, "Yeah, well, I guess it wasn't ours to have." For all that he had appreciated and loved about Pandora, as the years went by, he realized just how out of place he was on that planet. It might have been better if his avatar had survived the battle, or if the others' could have been saved; but the fact of the matter was that humans would always be aliens to that planet.

Even when he thought back to the days when he and Tom Sully had plotted to take down RDA from within, and when he allowed himself to dream of an alternate reality when that had occurred, he realized that, ultimately, he was not necessarily plotting for the survival of Pandora, but for the betterment of Earth. He might not have the deep, spiritual bond with Gaia that Tseyo had with Eywa, but he was no less tied to his home planet.

Luke chuckled. "For a team leader, you have the worst morale building skills I have ever seen."

Norm laughed and replied, "Between your split lip and my busted nose, we already look like a couple of badasses. Why bother with anything else?"

"Because otherwise we just look like a couple of guys who got our asses kicked. Even action heroes have to get pumped up."

"Fine," Norm said with a sigh. "Give me a second to think of something." He paused for dramatic effect, and then said, "Don't fuck this up."

Luke shook his head. "Inspiring."

Norm grinned and then walked towards the back of the van, in which Tseyo had already taken a seat. Unlike Norm, Tseyo appeared to be the model of calm; which, with his face and body paint, made him appear rather intimidating. Still, Norm felt compelled to ask, "How're you doing?"

Tseyo grinned. "You've asked me that many times, teacher," he said. "Are you sure you're asking me?"

"I think so," Norm said with a nervous laugh. "I hope so."

The Na'vi chuckled and said, "Patience is the greatest tool a hunter has. If you're nervous, you'll be heard throughout the jungle."

"Yeah, but we're not hunting _yerik_," Norm replied. "This is much more like hunting _palulukan_."

Tseyo nodded. "Still, even a stalking _palulukan_ can be brought down by a hunter who can wait for the right time to strike."

"Nobody goes hunting for him, though."

"That's also true."

Norm climbed into the back of the van to join Tseyo. "Have you given much thought to what you're going to tell people once it's time?"

"You mean about what's happened to my people?" Norm nodded, and Tseyo shook his head. "I think the words will come to me when they need to."

Norm allowed himself a moment to think about what people's reaction was going to be when Tseyo was broadcast around the world. Would they be awestricken by the Na'vi? Terrified? A worse possibility came to mind: What if they brushed him off all together? Numbed by technology and a string of horrors that had gone on for generations, would the fact that an alien had arrived to list the errors of their ways make any difference? In a horrible, alternate ending, humanity receives Klaatu's warning with a collective shrug.

He scratched the back of his neck, and in doing so looked down at Tseyo's belt. He had not protested when Tseyo donned the ceremonial knife which had been gifted to him – Norm understood the sentimental power of carrying on his people's will. The darts, however, still concerned him. When they were preparing to leave the Schellers' house, Norm had said to Tseyo, "You know we aren't supposed to kill anybody."

Tseyo had glared at him and responded, "Can you promise that our enemies won't want to kill us?"

Their conversation had abruptly ended.

Norm had to admit to himself that he was not wholly concerned about the lives of the RDA guards who might fall at Tseyo's hand. After all, he was convinced that a number of SecOps mercenaries had been killed by his wildly amateur shooting in the first battle for Pandora. He was far more concerned that Tseyo did not fully appreciate that gun-wielding guards in body armor would not be the kind of people who would be felled by a knife or blow dart.

He had a sickening image of Tseyo stepping out from behind a wall, weapon ready, and then being cut down by a sharp burst of gunfire. The memory quickly became a flashback, and he recalled the hundreds of Na'vi who charged the mercenaries' line. In one instant, they were confidently firing arrows at the threatening horde of technology; in the next, they were fleeing, dragging wounded comrades as far as they could before being shot themselves.

Pain radiated from Norm's shoulder.

Norm was snapped out of his memories when Tseyo sighed. "However, it's much harder to be patient when you aren't doing anything at all," he said with a wry grin.

He laughed and replied, "Yeah, it is."

Norm might have said more, but his earpiece came to life with Dawn's voice. "Boss says it's time to move," she said urgently.

It took him a second to react, but he responded, "Okay, we're going." He leaned out from the back of the van and shouted to the others, "It's show time!"

Luke jumped into the driver's seat, while Amy and Matthew got into the back of the van. When the back door was secured, Norm patted on the partition which divided the driver's cabin from the cargo hold, and Luke quickly pulled out of the barn.

"Let me know when you guys are near Alameda," Dawn said. "I'll put in the signal to RDA's system that you've been scanned. Then you'll have half an hour to get to the loading dock."

"Did you get that, Luke?" Norm asked as he pressed his earpiece.

"Yeah," Luke replied. "We can all hear each other," he added dryly. "That's kind of the point of all of us having communicators."

"Then why didn't I hear Abe?"

"Because you must not have been paying attention," Abe replied tersely. "Is your head in the game, Norm?"

He tried to bite his tongue, but he could not help himself. "I'm here," Norm replied. "I guess I've just learned to tune you out." Norm was satisfied when there was no response.

* * *

Pain radiated from Jude's chest with every breath and every one of the van's bumps. When they turned onto an unpaved road – she assumed it was a road – every other second was punctuated with a stabbing pain in her side. What kept her distracted, however, was not so much the physical pain, but the realization that she had been bested. Jude had taken dozens of contracts since the beginning of her sordid career, and she always came out on top. Yet here she was, hooded and in the hands of the country's most wanted terrorist organization.

She had known it was too good to be true when the Schellers contacted her, but she had been far too confident in herself. She should have dragged it out and let her electronic surveillance do its work. She should have dug deeper into the wife's personal security firm and found out her former liaison was on her payroll. But even if she had done these things differently, Jude had a feeling that the information she gathered would not have made much difference.

From what she had seen, Abe was absolutely right in asserting that RDA had deployed her too late in the game to stop his plot. Maybe she could have caught them at the last second and passed along their plans to her RDA handlers; but from what she knew of RDA, her guess was that even if she reported their plans and movements at the last possible moment, their bureaucracy would hinder their responsiveness.

Jude wondered if it was not too late to do something to interfere; not so much to fulfill her contract – she knew that was dead – but to screw the man who showed her up. But despite her best efforts, she could not think of a realistic way to accomplish such a thing. She did believe Abe's assertion that the Soldiers would kill her out of hand if she revealed her relationship to RDA, and it sounded to her like the Soldiers were already distrustful enough of Abe to shrug off a warning that he was preparing a double-cross. They seemed to have prepared for that on their own.

For the moment, Jude was stuck as a pawn in this game. If she came out alive, then she could give greater consideration to her revenge schemes. As such, Jude decided to keep quiet and play the role of a complicit hostage while keeping her eyes open for possible, future exploits.

That is, she would if they ever decided to take the bag off her head.

When the van stopped, she was roughly escorted through what sounded to her like a tunnel complex. A short time later, she was seated, handcuffed to a chair, and the bag finally removed. Once her eyes adjusted to the light, it appeared to her that she was in a control room. A mix of old and new monitors were set up on a few dozen desks aligned in two rows, although only eight of these desks had Soldiers seated at them. Each of the operators seemed to be intensely focused on what was happening on the screens in front of them. Jude was taken by how young some of them appeared – none of them could be past their mid-twenties.

In a nearby corner were a few, more senior-looking people who were quietly talking amongst themselves. Occasionally one of them would walk behind one of the rows to inspect whatever priority they were following. It was one of these Soldiers who came to her, pointed towards one of the active monitors, and said, "That's your guy."

The Soldier sitting at the desk turned in his chair so that Jude could get a better view of the screen. It appeared that the young woman they had sent to keep tabs on Abe had been fitted with a camera, and the two of them looked as though they had just gotten on the train.

The woman continued, "So now you know he's still alive. Questions?"

"Are all of these people tasked to us?"

"No," she said flatly. "You're not that special."

Next to the monitor she was directed towards, a Soldier appeared to be watching a traffic camera; although Jude could not discern what city the feed was coming from, much less why it was important. At another desk in the front row, a Soldier spoke into a headset. "I don't care if you didn't know it was closed to trucks. That's the whole point of recon, you dipshit. Figure it out."

Yet another person said, "Hey, it looks like the pigs are setting up at Leavenworth and Geary. Nothing heavy, just be aware."

"It sounds like something's special," Jude commented.

"We keep busy," the woman said. "You're only here to make sure Scheller doesn't screw us over, not to quarterback. So keep quiet and watch your screen."

Jude kept her eyes on the screen in front of her, but she did her best to pick up on the side conversations in the room. There was a lot of talk concerning road directions and the need for things to be in place within the hour. From the screen displaying the traffic camera, Jude saw a time of nine-fifty. She knew she had been in the van for a while, but certainly not four hours. That had to be East Coast time. But why would the Soldiers monitor traffic in an Eastern city? If striking at RDA's headquarters was not special enough to command all of their attention, what else could be?

Another plot was most certainly in the works; and if it was of the Soldiers' creation, Jude quietly hoped that someone else was aware of it.

* * *

By the time the train lurched out of the station, it had been most of two hours since he left the barn outside Modesto. However, the train would cover almost the same distance to San Francisco in just shy of fifteen minutes. In a passing thought, Abe recalled the conversation he had with Tom when he visited for dinner. "You're going to lay bare the greatest corporate conspiracy in the history of mankind, and then follow that up with an intensified energy crisis," his friend had told him.

He looked around the train car. Sacramento was not one of the hubs for the worldwide high speed rail network that had been the catalyst for RDA's explosive growth, but one of the cities in San Francisco's "local" service area, as were Redding, Fresno, and Reno – cities that, in a simpler time with basic transportation, would have effectively been day trips from San Francisco. Once in the city by the bay, commuters on these trains could be whisked away to Los Angeles in twenty minutes, Montreal in a little over two hours, or, as the couple behind him seemed destined for, Sydney in four hours along the world's fastest line.

The only way it was possible for these trains to reach the ultra high speeds to make trans-Pacific travel routine was with Pandorium's superconductivity. Shutting down this network would mean more than depriving Australians of easy, weekend trips to Reno's cheap casinos, it would kill industrialized nations' ability to collect cheap labor from across the world. The workers who commuted daily from Nairobi to Rome to maintain luxury hotels in the decrepit cultural capital would immediately be out of work, and Italy would be unable to replace twenty percent of its workforce. If Pakistan would not provide Indians with alternate routes to provide for the flow of workers between them, Iran and Afghanistan, India might decide to blast open those routes with nuclear weapons.

Hundreds of scenarios played out in his mind in those fifteen minutes. Nations were going to war over the last, natural sources of fresh water – such was Mexico's ill-fated attempt to acquire access to the Salton Sea following the United States' successful reclamation project – it only made sense that they would go to war over the greatest resource: labor. People had thought that a world of twenty billion would have decreased the value of human life, and that was true on an individual basis. For governments, however, and quasi-governments, such as RDA, it simply meant that people had become a true commodity, a resource to be moved en masse whether through commerce or conflict. The high-speed rail system had become the strings holding the fluctuations of population together; without it, the tenuous balances of power and economy could unravel.

And Tom accused him of losing sight of the ability to leverage his position.

Once the train pulled into the San Francisco terminal at King Street, one of the hubs of international rail travel, Abe and Ashley made their way through the crowd of passengers to reach the RDA employee light rail shuttle that would carry them to RDA's headquarters. Despite the scale of the crowd – a microcosm of humanity trying to efficiently diffuse to an array of far-off destinations for as many conceivable reasons – the sheer size of the terminal, more appropriately described as an eighteen acre complex of railways, meant that the greatest obstacle to making one of the shuttles was not the mass of people, but the distance they had to travel.

Abe's shoes clicked along the marble floor as he hurried along, the echoes of his footfalls mixing with the din of thousands of conversations on its way to the arched, steel-frame ceiling almost two-hundred feet above. Between the building's footprint and height, if the terminal were gutted, it could comfortably house the old, forty-five thousand seat baseball stadium located across the street. When he and Ashley arrived that the queue for the shuttle, Abe was pleased to see a pair of RDA guards by the doors.

"All RDA employees must have _two_ forms of identification!" one of them, a short, stocky woman, shouted. "This can be your employee badge and then either your driver's license, citizenship identification card, or passport – anything with your name and picture."

Many in the line were not happy. "Who the fuck carries a driver's license?" a man loudly asked. "Like we all own cars."

The guard tried to be patient. "Sir, I'm sorry, but there is a problem with the facial identification system. You need to be manually in-processed at the headquarters gate."

RDA's facial recognition software was the descendant of security systems originally developed for the city-wide closed-circuit television systems of the late twentieth century, a time when biometrics was in its infancy and an inaccurate science. At the peak of the population and immigration booms, which together resulted in an explosion of crime, the United States passed a law requiring that every citizen have an identification card with multiple biometric features. At the time, it was the world's largest country to have such a requirement, fueling the industry. When China amended its long-standing law to include similar requirements, the biometrics industry exploded.

As nations developed extensive databases of their citizens' most unique features, and sold access to those databases to large corporate entities at a premium, businesses were quick to utilize the technology for their own purposes. In the case of RDA's headquarters, as its employee population swelled to the size of a minor city in its own right, it became impractical to have guards manually check every employee's documents; and as biometric forgery improved, it became dangerous to simply let people scan identification cards at kiosks without a way to double-check the identification.

The popular solution, at least for corporations which could afford it, was to set up facial recognition systems at their checkpoints. When a person entered the compound, their biometric card would be scanned at the same time as their face would be captured on camera. Within milliseconds, the information from both sources would be scrubbed through RDA's employee database to verify the employee's identity; and if a false match resulted, an alarm would sound, and the person would be detained until his or her status could be verified.

However, the technology required precise coordination between the scanner and the camera, and RDA learned in the first iterations just how difficult it was to calibrate. False alarms were routine, and the security system was shelved for years while newer, more reliable generations were brought online. This was the flaw Dawn exploited in her virus.

Every thirty seconds, the main computers would recalibrate the card scanners and facial recognition cameras to ensure synchronization. Dawn's virus, working through the high-security exploits she had identified, adjusted the calibration parameters to ensure that each cycle would slightly decouple the systems while at the same time deteriorating the quality of the facial captures; thus, even though the engineers were able to identify and reset the calibration parameters soon after the virus' launch, false matches continued to occur. Protocol required the system to be brought offline for a full diagnostic scan, a four-hour process.

Within two minutes of the virus' launch, the first false alarm sounded. Three minutes later, there were more false alarms than valid entries. The system was taken offline, and guards were ordered to conduct manual in-processing of employees and visitors. Now, almost an hour after the system had been taken down, at the start of the morning rush, Abe and Ashley were two of several tens of thousands of people lined up at staff entrances around the RDA complex. As Abe had expected, the guards were only making cursory checks of identification documents in order to keep the crowd from becoming unruly.

He presented his forged employee card and driver's license to the female guard. It struck Abe that she had not even looked at them before she handed them back to him and waved him through to the shuttle. Ashley was similarly moved through the checkpoint.

When they were out of earshot of the guards and on their way down the tunnel to the boarding platform, Ashley looked at him and said, "That's it? That's RDA's security?"

"I'm sure we'll get checked again at the building itself," Abe replied. "That's not usually a processing point, so those guards were just weeding out who had the right ID and who didn't. The guards at the tower won't be so overwhelmed."

The light railcar arrived shortly after Abe and Ashley, and it carried them through the mile-long tunnel in a little over two minutes. From that station, they entered the main lobby of RDA's headquarters; a squat, low-ceiling annex to the Bay Point skyscraper. Rather than being bottlenecked into a single tunnel as before, there were twelve lines set up for employees to pass through, each with two guards posted. Abe felt a knot grow in his stomach, and he heard Ashley take a deep breath.

"Choose a separate lane," Abe said. "We don't want to be seen too closely together – in case one of us doesn't make the check."

"I'm not supposed to leave your side," she replied tersely.

"I need a second person in the office. Trust me, I won't run off without you." He was being honest, but he also declined to say that if she was caught, as Abe allowed himself to hope, he would be neither terribly upset nor inconvenienced to go on without her.

With some hesitance, Ashley left his side to stand in a line three rows away from him. They moved more slowly than at the rail terminal as the guards took the time to inspect the badges, even if their inspections were cursory. As the security system had not catastrophically failed in years, guards had become reliant on the technology. They were not nearly as skilled at spotting forged identification as some of their predecessors might have been.

Still, Abe knew that a lack of skill was not enough of a guarantee; and though he was no stranger to the creation of forged documents, he also lacked the skills of a professional. He would not be comfortable until he was past the checkpoint.

When it was his turn to be processed, the guard gave him a nod and muttered something that sounded like, "Morning, sir," but his outstretched hand made it clear that he was more interested in getting on with his job than exchanging pleasantries.

Abe turned over his documentation, and waited anxiously as the guard moved his fingers over the cards. He was checking for ink smudges, the right colors in holograms, and whether or not embossed seals were raised to the correct height. He flicked the edges to ensure the laminations were securely bonded, and then stared hard at the two pictures Abe had presented.

The guard took a breath, looked up at Abe – staring right into his eyes – and paused before saying, "All right, sir. Go on. Have a good day."

Abe was inclined to say something in response, but the best he could muster against the lump in his throat was a slight nod. He took his cards back, and then hurried towards the tower's main atrium. He might have been moving too quickly, however, because he felt someone grab his arm. He turned quickly and saw that it was Ashley who was holding him. "I told you not to run," she scolded.

He did not shake his arm away from her, as it might risk causing a scene. Instead, he kept walking and said flatly, "I wasn't."

"Uh huh."

She let go of him as they entered the tower's atrium. Despite all the time Abe had spent working here, he could not help himself from looking up towards the tower's pinnacle. From the ground floor, it was easier to appreciate the tower's spiral-like construction that, from the outside, was otherwise broken up by the cragged, steel encasement.

Bay Point's four sections were divided by three mezzanine gardens, each of which was rotated to provide for an uninterrupted line of sight to the top of the half-mile spire, which was itself the floor of Chairman Savage's penthouse. This first section, principally a public-access mall, was quiet. Stores would not open for another couple of hours, and so only RDA employees shuffled through on their way to work.

While Abe craned his neck, he touched his earpiece and said, "Status check – we're in."

"We're a little-ways west of Tracy," Luke replied. "Maybe a little more than an hour out. Traffic's starting to get thick."

Dawn chimed in next. "Nobody's raised any alarms so far."

"What about the action outside?" Abe asked.

"Security doesn't seem to be paying it too much attention," she replied to his dismay.

He sighed and said, "Okay. I'll let you know when we're at the next step."

They walked towards the main elevator bay, joining a group of employees waiting for one of the express cars. When it arrived, Abe drew a few looks when he pressed the button for the fourth section mezzanine. The majority of the employees he was with worked in RDA's lower level offices and would disembark on the second mezzanine. For them, the executive section might as well have been as exotic a location as Pandora. They were the ones who seemed surprised to be sharing a car with someone whose business was on the upper floors.

The employees who disembarked on the third mezzanine, however, were not only unimpressed with him, but they appeared to take pains to avoid eye contact with him. These mid-level managers' experiences with executives tended to be negative, typically getting barked at for missing deadlines or underperformance. In the days when Abe commanded AMIS, these were the people whose careers and lives he would ruin in the course of internal investigations when accountability passed over a more senior executive.

Abe and Ashley were the only ones left on the express elevator when it reached the third mezzanine garden, two-thousand feet above the ground, leaving them with only a brisk walk to the localized elevator bay that would carry them to their target. He allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief at having managed to get so far without detection, but he soon found that his confidence was premature.

Not more than halfway through the gardened walkway, another of the express elevators opened. Abe's heightened sense of caution compelled him to turn and see if a wave of SecOps were disembarking to chase him down. Instead, he made eye contact with an old colleague.

"Shit," Abe muttered as he quickly turned away.

"What?" Ashley asked.

She was about to turn around – and he was going to stop her so they could keep going – when the man called out in a high pitched, Southern drawl, "Abe?" His stomach lurched as his name echoed off the walls.

Abe did a quick survey of the corridors which spiraled around the garden to see if any curious heads were beginning to poke over the railing. Even if RDA had purged everybody who might have been sympathetic to him, Abe was still a figurehead in RDA's lore. This particular colleague, however, was not someone Abe would have considered sympathetic to him. He was simply an ass kisser.

He took a deep breath, turned on his heels, and asked, "Cliff, is that you?"

"You're damned straight it is!" Cliff Houser was a tall, lanky man with glasses. But for a few more wrinkles on his forehead and some thinning hair, he looked just as Abe remembered. More than anything else, Abe remembered Cliff as perhaps one of the least astute people to ever work in RDA's executive corps. However, he could out drink anybody he came across, and he was smart enough to know how to woo a drunken supervisor into giving him a promotion.

Abe gave him a disingenuous smile as the man jogged up to shake his hand. "How're you doing?"

"Good, man, real good," he replied as he too enthusiastically, forcefully shook Abe's hand. Putting his lack of tact on full display, Cliff said, "Jesus, what are you doing here? Word about town is that you're supposed to be coming back on a prison ship or some such!"

"Whose word is that?"

"Everybody's!" he said with a chuckle. "Yeah, I figured I'd be seeing you next on the ten-o-clock news. Trial of the century kind of stuff."

Abe let out a nervous laugh and said, "Well, surprise." He exchanged a glance with Ashley, who gave him a cross expression in return, clearly wanting to ditch the small talk.

Cliff persisted. He looked at Ashley and asked, "Is this your girl? I don't remember the last time I saw her."

"It's been a while since you've been by the house," Abe replied politely. Cliff had crashed one of his house parties when Natalie was four, and both Abe and Krysta spelled out clear consequences to the invited guests should any of them take it upon themselves to invite him back. "But, no, this isn't Natalie."

"Then I guess you won't mind if I see her after work, huh?" He laughed uproariously at his own joke, while Abe was too dumbstruck to react with more than a snort and half-hearted chuckle.

Ashley, on the other hand, was more direct. "I'd rather suck off a sewage pump than a suit."

Whether oblivious or wanting to push back, Cliff responded by feigning horror and said, "Oh, hard to get, I see?" He then mimicked a cat scratch, complete with sound effects. It occurred to Abe that it this man either had gotten an early start on his liquor, or had become stupider in the nearly twelve years since he had last seen him.

"Listen, maybe we could catch up later," Abe offered. "We have a meeting we need to get to."

"Oh yeah? Who with?"

Abe thought about lying for a moment, but he figured that train had left the station. "Franklin Ashworth, actually," he replied.

Cliff laughed. "I'm pretty sure you _don't_," he said.

Abe was caught off guard. "Why's that?"

"Well, shit, because I'd know about it." Cliff gave him a light punch on the shoulder and said with a grin, "I got your old job, buddy."

He felt the blood drain from his face, succumbing to a moment of horror on the thought that he had been led along on faulty intelligence. "What?"

"Well, _old_, old job." His grin became a beaming smile. "Yessir, you're looking at AMIS' Deputy Director for Investigations and Security!"

In a wild swing from panic to indignation, Abe could not think of another time he felt more insulted. Having his old, reliable coworkers purged by a vindictive corporate leader? He could understand that. Having his capable replacement hire someone to silence him and his family to protect the company from catastrophe? He could understand that. But having this blathering idiot be considered a worthy successor for a job he loyally, competently executed for many years? It was difficult for him to stay restrained, and his grip tightened on his suitcase handle to become a white-knuckled fist.

He swallowed hard and said flatly, "It was an impromptu arrangement."

"Well, I hope you don't mind if I sit in and see what all the fuss is about," Cliff replied with a grin.

"Of course not," Abe said, forcing a smile. He turned briefly to Ashley, who looked absolutely bewildered, and gave her a slight shake of his head.

On their way to the elevators, Cliff continued to crow about how he had weaseled his way into Abe's old job through his usual tactic of liquoring up the right people. For a moment, he wondered if Cliff was the one who was responsible for overseeing the operation to have him silenced, but he could not fathom a circumstance – or liquor hard enough – where Cliff would be able to earn the kind of confidence needed to be in charge of something so high profile. Indeed, when Cliff began to ramble on about the increasing workload, Abe had it in mind to say that it was because Cliff was too incompetent to keep fraud and saboteurs under control.

Despite his deep, more sinister desires, they made it to Abe's target floor without incident. The black marble hallway, just adequately lit by lighting strips along the floor and ceiling, seemed foreboding to him, despite his years working in this place. Abe became even more uncomfortable when he saw that there were two guards – not just one, as it was when he worked here – manning the security desk which controlled access to AMIS' offices. Worse still, Cliff took it on himself to make introductions.

When he handed his badge to the guards to verify his identity as an AMIS employee, Cliff said, "And this here is Abe Scheller, here to see Franklin Ashworth."

The guard raised an eyebrow and replied, "I don't remember seeing any visitors on the morning schedule."

"That's 'cause it was 'impromptu,'" Cliff said with a grin.

The guard shook his head. "Sorry, but I'm going to have to call in and check."

Time seemed to slow down as the guard reached for the video screen. Abe could not imagine what the first words out of Franklin's mouth would be, but he could imagine the last words would result in an ignominious end to Abe's plan.

"Fuck this," Ashley said, and then leapt over the desk to tackle the accompanying guard.

"What the—?" Cliff started to say, but Abe pushed him out of the way to charge the other guard before he could intervene on his comrade's behalf.

It had been one thing to fight Norm the other day. Pandora had significantly weakened him, making him an easy opponent. The guard, however, was in far superior physical condition, and he put up a much better fight. Abe tried to go straight for the guard's gun, but he was not fast enough and instead got flipped on his back. Before he could get in too much trouble, Abe reached up, grabbed the guard by the shoulders, and pulled him onto the floor. After that, they fought each other to gain the upper hand.

At some point during the struggle, he heard Dawn in his ear. "Is everything okay?" she asked. "I'm getting a lot of interference."

They were fighting at a draw until Abe managed to get a hold of a can of pepper spray on the guard's belt. Ripping it off the guard, he popped off the cap, aimed the canister at his opponent's face, and activated the spray for a full second. A moment later, the guard cried out and reached for his eyes. Due to their proximity, even Abe felt his eyes begin to burn; however, ignoring the pain, he managed to get to his feet and kick the guard several times in his ribs before he knelt down and pulled the gun from its owner's holster.

While the guard writhed on the floor, Abe wiped tears from his eyes and tried to ignore the burning sensation in his nose and on his lips. Coughing and almost breathless, Abe glared at Ashley, who had much more easily subdued her target, and said, "Some help would have been nice."

"I was going to shoot him for you," she said flatly. "Then you used that shit spray and fucked up my eyes." He could see both she and her hostage had reddened eyes.

"Fair enough," he replied as he pulled off the radio from the still-pained guard.

At that point, he turned and pointed his gun at Cliff, who was standing there with a bemused, slackjawed expression. Staring down the gun barrel seemed to refocus his attention, however, and he quickly held his hands up over his head. He let out a short laugh and said, "Hey, buddy…"

"I hope you've enjoyed having my old job," Abe interrupted, "because before today's over, I'm going to make sure you're out of work."


	25. Execution, Part III

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – Starting in October, I should be able to update regularly.

* * *

"You know what the real problem is, don't you?" she asked.

Franklin let out a short laugh. "I can think of a few problems," he replied. "But what's on your mind?"

"He knows too many people." Janet Tullman, RDA's chief public affairs officer, had been at the company much longer than Franklin. She had succeeded her former boss, David Lieberman, to assume her current role after Chairman Savage fired David for failing to keep the media away from RDA's prosecutions of Abe Scheller's wife.

Those trials had been the first sign to all of RDA's competitors that something had gone very wrong in the company's upper echelon, and they had spent considerable resources probing RDA for the cause behind the upheaval. Franklin knew that if he failed to resolve the current crisis, he would not lose his job because of the chairman's decision, but because there might not be an RDA at which he could continue his employment.

He sighed and set his glasses on the conference room table so that he could rub his eyes. They had spent most of the last half hour trying to put together a statement in anticipation of the media inquiries that were sure to follow RDA's assault on the Schellers' home. They had nothing to show for their efforts. "Yes, I have considered that."

"Do we have to be so visible about this?" she asked. "Is there any way we can take care of him quietly?"

"That was the purpose of my asset." Franklin had not heard from Jude since last evening. She had contacted him to say that she had successfully planted surveillance devices on the perimeter of the Schellers' home, and would make her first report in the morning. She was supposed to have called in over two hours ago. "Apparently, though, that hasn't gone as planned."

"So why is the backup plan to storm his house with SecOps? I mean, let's go throw bricks at hornets' nests while we're at it."

"We can't sit back and wait for him to act," Franklin said. "Doing things quietly – properly, anyway – takes time. The chairman wants this resolved today."

Janet shook her head. "As long as he knows we're guaranteed to get blowback." She sighed and continued, "My worry is that there's no way we can say something without also saying that our Pandora mission failed. Again."

"It didn't fail," Franklin replied. "It's succeeded in spite of Abe's betrayal."

"You're one of those who believes that the bigger the lie is, the more likely people are to believe it, aren't you?"

"I believe it because it keeps working."

"We can't keep fooling all the people all the time," Janet said, recalling the old adage. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "That was the thing about Abe. He also knew who he needed to keep in the dark and who he needed to be open with. It always creeped me out. Whenever he talked to you, you didn't know if he was being sincere or playing you for an idiot."

"But he was successful."

Franklin had met Abe just once before, back when he was starting his career in corporate espionage. It had been at a conference ostensibly for experts in intellectual property rights, but under the surface it was one of the few venues where the wealthiest multinationals sent their armies of intelligence operatives to ensure that lines of communication remained healthy in the event that their business rivalries spilled over into something more dangerous. As each of the leading corporations constituted small – or, in the case of RDA and few others, not-so-small – nations, these were akin to peace conferences.

As a junior deputy, his job was to sit and observe his superiors as they negotiated with their rivals. In contrast, Franklin recalled that Abe had put his deputies forward as chief negotiators at the various meeting tables. He appeared as a commanding general who was only there to watch a meticulously planned battle unfold, and to ensure none of his field commanders got into too much trouble.

Most of Abe's counterparts did not have the same respect for his tactics.

After one such meeting where Abe's deputies had been put forward as lead negotiators, a representative of one of RDA's corporate rivals directly challenged Abe for demeaning the others by refusing to engage them personally. Franklin remembered the encounter in vivid detail. Abe stood there like a rock, patiently suffering through the man's tantrum.

At the end of the rant, Abe said in a measured tone, "I'm sorry your subordinates are too incompetent to play with the big boys, but mine aren't. And since you haven't said anything worthwhile in these last few minutes, I'm more certain now than I was this morning that talking with you directly would have been a giant, goddamned waste of my time."

Four months later, RDA initiated a hostile takeover of the rival company.

"Yeah, well, let's just say I wasn't too broken up when he got the Pandora assignment," Janet said in response to his passively respectful comment on Abe.

"I don't think you were alone," he replied. "Inside and outside RDA." He donned his glasses once again and said, "I still think we're on the most solid grounds if we play it up as a case of extortion. He went to Pandora and found something awry, but rather than do his job and call the leadership's attention to the issue, he decided to use it to his personal advantage."

"So what did he find? Hypothetically."

"We don't have to say that. We'll cover it up as 'proprietary' or 'under investigation.'"

"We already told the world there was an industrial accident," she protested. "Did he find corporate mismanagement? A cover-up? Again, if we go the extortion route, then that suggests RDA has done something that could merit extortion." He arched an eyebrow at her, and she held up her hand. "That we don't know of," she emphasized.

They continued this brainstorming session for another several minutes in the AMIS conference room, whose smoked-glass walls were designed to offer total sound reduction. Had they been of more basic construction, Franklin and Janet might have heard when Abe and his accomplice barged into the office and began pulling employees from their cubicles and offices, corralling them with threats of violence.

Instead, their first indicator that something had gone wrong came when Cliff Houser, a deputy of Franklin's who he frequently encouraged to leave RDA on early retirement, opened the conference room's door and was soon followed inside by the assembled hostages.

At the beginning of the influx, Franklin stood and asked to the group, "What's going on?" He got his answer a moment later when Abe turned the corner and brought a gun to level between his eyes.

A young woman pushed past Abe and began barking orders at the rest of the group. "Faces against the wall! Get on your knees!" Someone was too slow to comply. "I said your knees, asshole!" Franklin might have turned to see who was disobeying if he were not so compelled to keep looking at the gun barrel in front of him.

"Are you Franklin Ashworth?" Abe asked. In contrast to the woman, Abe sounded calm, in total control of the situation and himself. Franklin nodded in response. At that, Abe's eyes seemed to harden. "You and I need to talk."

* * *

"Good morning, San Francisco!" the male anchor said into the camera as a light, piano-driven theme song quietly played in the background. His beaming smile seemed to take up most of the screen. "It's eight-o-clock this Tuesday, February Eleventh, and a beautiful sixty-seven degree, sunny day here in downtown." The program switched to another camera, which showed the four-person panel of hosts sitting next to each other on a white, semi-circular couch in a set designed like an oversized living room.

They all had the same broad, pearl-white smiles as the leading host.

"Of course, I'm Dan Steel, here with the best morning show team – I'll just say it – on the West Coast."

"Only the West Coast?" another of the male broadcast personalities, lighter-skinned and balder than Dan, asked, eliciting a round of contrived laughs from the others.

"I don't want to get us into trouble!" Dan replied in mock defensiveness. "And there are a lot of media markets out there. Let's just stick with the most award-winning team in San Francisco, okay?"

"All right, Dan," his female co-anchor said to him, still smiling, and then turned to the camera switched to close-up on her. "It is true that we are San Francisco's leading source for information about your daily living, at home and at work, and we have a great show for you over these next few hours. But first, sixty-seven degrees?" She turned to look at the other male on the sofa, the shot going wide again. "That's a bit warm for this time of year, isn't it, Terry?"

"It is," Terry replied. "We're not going to see anything like the record-breaking eighty- and ninety-degree temperatures that we had this time a few years ago, but we will get into the upper-seventies as this high pressure system continues to linger over the Bay Area. We'll get to all of that, plus the fourteen-day forecast, San Francisco's most accurate morning forecast," he said with a turn and nod towards the camera, "in a few minutes."

The camera focused on Dan and his co-host. "Thank you, Terry." He turned towards the camera. "Sue's right – we have a great show planned for you this morning. In addition to local, national, business, and entertainment news, we have some excellent features for your daily living."

"We do," Sue said. "In this first half hour, we'll be comparing some of the leading, exopack maintenance products to make sure you're getting the most for your money. Later, we'll be joined by the renowned, award-winning chef, Kaylie Davis, who will show you how you can make restaurant-quality meals out of imitation meats. First, let's look at some of today's headlines."

Natalie was not paying attention to any of this. She had turned to the program in an attempt to keep herself relaxed and distracted, but she was finding more comfort in idly scratching the fur behind Vertex's ears.

From the time he was a puppy, Vertex had been able to detect when she was sad or anxious, and his reaction was unchanged. He casually approached her, sat at her side, and rested his snout in her lap. He would then stare up at her with the intelligent, rich brown eyes that were iconic of his breed, and then whimper until she acknowledged him. Normally, a few minutes of petting or talking aloud would calm her down, but she felt no better now than when their ritual began earlier in the morning.

She had done as Dawn advised and put together an emergency escape bag of her essential belongings – her personal tablet, medications, toiletries, and a few changes of clothes – but having it sit beside her on the couch did little else but keep her thinking about the possibility that she would need to use it. In her mind, Dawn – sometimes her mother – frantically raced down to the basement to rouse her into flight. They would pack in to the minivan, and then speed off to a high-speed rail station. Sometimes they were pursued by armed agents; sometimes they were undetected on the drive, but every time they were captured before making it to a train.

Natalie tried not to think far beyond that point; but the thoughts which took the place of her escape fantasies were no less troublesome.

Although Dawn had pressed her for details, Natalie had kept silent about much of her night with Tseyo and the extent to which she entertained her curiosity. She did tell Dawn that she had let him know the extent of her feelings for him, and that he had been receptive – and that bothered her. With her urges satiated, her passion subdued, Natalie had paused to think about the consequences of her advances.

Natalie knew there was no chance of a long-term relationship, but then she knew that was not something she wanted. Tseyo, on the other hand, was quite literally hardwired for such a thing. She looked again at the hammock-turned-bundle which sat on the floor and wondered if Tseyo was trying to think about the effect his actions would have on trying to find a mate back home – if he was still seeking one.

It was always assumed that he was going to go home at the end of his mission, but what if he insisted on staying, now? He would, of course, have to explain his insistence to her father; and he would—? Natalie realized that she did not know her father well enough to complete the thought, but she had difficulty imagining a peaceful resolution under any circumstances.

Vertex whimpered, and she realized that she had stopped scratching. Natalie smiled down at him and, rather than resume petting, patted the couch seat beside her. "Come on, boy," she said.

The German Shepherd Dog looked at the seat, and then back at her. In his eyes, she saw him ask, "Really? I thought I wasn't allowed on the couch."

She scooted over and patted the cushion again. "It's all right. Come on."

Vertex propped his forepaws on the couch before leaping up, his large frame taking up most of the remaining space, and then lay down with his head and forelegs in her lap. Natalie rubbed his shoulder and withers, eliciting a few wags of his tail.

Natalie wondered what would happen to him if she had to leave.

On the heels of that thought, Vertex raised his head from her lap and turned towards the stairs. Natalie heard the footfalls coming downstairs and reached for her backpack. She gave Vertex one more pat on his shoulder.

Her mother turned the corner of the stairwell and smiled weakly at Natalie. "How're you doing?"

"I'm okay," she responded with a slight nod. "Don't you have a client meeting today?"

"I moved it." Krysta approached the couch and said, "And I'm going to guess you requested absences for your classes."

Natalie let out a soft laugh. "Yeah, I couldn't pay attention today if I wanted to."

Krysta reached down and patted Vertex on his head – to his delight – before setting Natalie's backpack on the floor so she could join her on the couch. She took a deep breath and said, "It's been a rough few days, hasn't it?"

"To say the least."

She put a hand on Natalie's knee. "I know this isn't how you thought it would be when your dad came home." She shook her head and added, "It's certainly not what I thought."

Natalie sighed and replied, "I realized something the other night. You know, when Doctor Walsh was here?" Her mother nodded. "You've never told me why he left in the first place – I mean, not in detail."

"That's because we wanted you to think more about him coming home than being away."

She furrowed her brow. "How was I supposed to do that? One day I had a dad, and then the next day he was _gone_."

"We tried not to make it painful…"

"I know," she interrupted tersely. "I know you did, but it was painful anyway."

Her mother took another breath, looked away, and after some hesitation said, "Your father didn't want to go. It was the last thing he wanted to do. However, the Savage got it in your father's mind that there was the chance that they could find a cure for you on Pandora."

"But why did he have to go? Daddy's not a scientist. Even you told me once that he can't tell the difference between a maple leaf and poison ivy."

Krysta chuckled. "That _was_ an interesting camping trip." She looked back at Natalie and continued, "If you haven't picked up on it, your father doesn't suffer fools very well. After Parker made a mess of Pandora he, like everyone in RDA, was hyper-paranoid about something going wrong again. As soon as he got it in his head that someone might screw up a cure for you, there was no chance of bringing him back."

"Did you try?"

"Yes," she said emphatically. "I was hysterical about the whole thing, actually. However, your father is a stubborn son of a bitch."

Natalie's eyes widened a bit, but she also could not help from cracking a smile at her mother's quip. "Mom?"

She smiled and said, "I knew him for fourteen years before you came on the scene, Sweetie. I love him, but he can be more than a bit of a prick when he wants to be." Her mother sighed, raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Did I ever tell you that I didn't want to hire him in the first place?"

"No," she said with no small amount of surprise. "You guys always made it seem like he strolled into your office one day, proposed to you, and the rest was 'happily ever after.'"

Krysta laughed. "Well, Natalie, I guess we've been lying to you." She shook her head, continuing, "He was so fucking smug – pardon me – during his interview that I wanted to throw his resume in his face, but the HR reps on the hiring panel just ate him up. It didn't get any better once he started working for me, either. He always violated protocol, always got involved in matters way above his pay grade, and was totally blasé about it all." Despite rattling off her father's faults as an employee, her mother's tone was far from harsh. To the contrary, she seemed pleasantly lost in the memories.

"I wanted to fire him," she said flatly, "but despite his complete disregard for the handbook, he never failed on an assignment. Since outcomes were all our director looked at in doing employee evaluations, he got one promotion after another."

Natalie let out a short laugh. "It's hard to imagine Daddy being a renegade."

"He was," her mother said with a slow nod. Her tone became much less light-hearted when she carried on with the story. "And then your aunt was murdered." She shook her head again. "He changed literally overnight. He finally seemed to realize, for the worse, that there were things about life that he couldn't control. So when you were born, he wanted to be sure that there was nothing about your life that he couldn't make better."

"Is that why you named me after his sister?"

"_He_ says you're named after his sister," her mother corrected with a slight smile. "_I_ had naming rights – after twenty hours of labor, that was the least he could give me – and it was a happy coincidence that my dearest grandmother's name was also Natalie."

She smiled and then looked down at Vertex, who appeared less than engaged in the storytelling. Natalie regained his attention by scratching him behind his ears, and then she asked, "So, do you think he's doing all of this for me?"

"I think he's doing all of this because he's angry at how we've been treated by RDA," her mother replied.

"But it's all over!" she protested. "We – You won the lawsuits. The company was leaving us alone."

"Your father has a different definition of winning," Krysta said. "If the other guy isn't begging for mercy, it's not a win."

"Yeah, well, if he's so smart, he could have figured out a better way to get back at the company," Natalie angrily replied. "He could have figured out another way to make sure that things didn't go wrong on Pandora, and then we all could have been fine."

From somewhere deep inside of Natalie, raw emotions of anger and sadness surged forward to overcome her. She felt a lump form in her throat, and her vision became blurred by welling tears. She tried to put a hand over her face to maintain her composure, but it was not enough.

As soon as Natalie began to sob, her mother leaned over to wrap her arms about her shoulders, holding her close. "It's all right," she said in an attempt to be reassuring.

"No, it's not," Natalie replied between choked breaths. "This isn't all right. He doesn't have to do this to us."

"Do what?"

"Leave!" she shouted. "What do you think is going to happen? If he beats RDA, there are lots of people out there who aren't just going to let him come home again." Sarcastically, she imitated the optimistic response from the long arm of the law and said, "'Hey, it's totally cool you were a terrorist for a day and broke the world's economy. We'll clean it up. Have a nice day!'"

"Natalie, it's not going to help to think like that," her mother replied calmly.

"What else can I do?"

Krysta got off the couch to kneel in front of her, forcing Natalie to look her in the eyes. She held her hands, took a breath and said, "Natalie, I don't know what's going to happen today. Okay? I'm scared, too. But I know your father, and I know there's nothing he wants more than to come home to be with us. You're going to have to try to trust him."

"It's more than that," she replied.

"What else is there?"

Natalie explained between sobs, "Last night he tried talking to me about the day he left for Pandora, but I couldn't remember it. Like you said, I know you and he tried to make his leaving less painful for me, and I couldn't remember _any_ of it."

"It was a long time ago," she offered. "You can't be expected to remember every detail from back then."

"But it wasn't for him!" Natalie said. "It was important to him, and I just threw it away like any other memory. I just don't want him to—," she had to pause to think of the right way to phrase her thoughts. "I don't want him to think I don't care."

"I know he doesn't think that, Natalie," her mother replied, reaching up to brush away a tear from her cheek.

A few moments of silence passed between them while Natalie recovered from the emotional upwelling, and then she asked, "Seriously, what are we going to do if everything goes wrong? Where are we going to go?"

"I don't know what we're going to do," Krysta replied, "but I know we're not going anywhere." To emphasize the point, she placed Natalie's backpack behind an adjacent chair. "This is our home," she said firmly, "and nothing's going to force us out."

* * *

Once Ashley had divested the AMIS employees of their various communications devices, she took on the task of escorting employees who continued to trickle in during the morning hours back to the conference room, although she had resisted the assignment.

"How do I know you aren't going to take him to the office and make a deal behind my back?" she pointedly asked.

"You don't," Abe replied tersely. "But unless you want someone to get loose and screw us both, you're going to have to trust me."

Abe walked with Franklin back to his office. Along the way, Franklin asked, "Is there any reason why I shouldn't be worried that two people holding guns don't get along?"

"I'm sure there are," Abe replied. "But I don't have time to think about them." Once inside the office, Abe locked the door and commanded Franklin to sit at his desk.

Abe was surprised to find that the office was arranged almost exactly as it had been when he left for Pandora. On the one hand, the familiarity provided him with a measure of comfort; but on the other hand, it was unnerving to think that the office was such that his successors had merely rotated through the office without any attempt to be unique.

"All right, Mister Scheller, you said you wanted to talk," Franklin said as he took his seat. "So let's talk."

"This is going to be a very one-sided conversation," Abe replied, sitting on the other side of the desk. "You're going to log in to the data archives, and then you're going to sit back and let me do what I need to."

Abe's replacement sat quietly for a moment, and then said calmly, "No."

He leveled the gun at Franklin's chest. "Excuse me?"

"I'm not going to be coerced, not as long as you're holding my employees hostage."

Abe had a flashback to the day he landed on Pandora, and was unable to hold back a grin. "Ironic," he said under his breath.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing," he replied. He tipped the barrel of the gun forward to refocus the conversation. "Let's get back to having you do what I tell you to do."

Franklin sighed and said, "I'm disappointed in you, Mister Scheller. Your reputation wasn't of someone who'd become a gun-wielding maniac."

"If RDA hadn't sought retribution against my family – despite our years of loyalty to the company – maybe I wouldn't be," he replied flatly. "But the facts are what they are."

"And how many people are out there wishing they could hold you at gunpoint for what you did to their families?"

"Lots, I'm sure," he said. "But they aren't here right now. I'm here, and I'm on a schedule."

Franklin paused, nodding slowly, and then said, "Maybe if you just told me what it is you're after, we could work something out."

Abe raised an eyebrow. "Are you in a position to negotiate?"

He held his hands up. "I'm sure you understand that I can't make any promises, but that doesn't mean we can't explore our options."

"No, Frank, that's not what I mean. I mean to ask if you think you're operating on a level playing field."

"You're the one holding the gun," Franklin replied. "I think that says enough about the state of our bargaining table."

"Even if I weren't holding the gun," Abe began patiently, "twelve years ago I got suckered away from my family to go to a God-forsaken planet in order to salvage the ego of the world's richest, and arguably most powerful, person. I spent eight months fighting self-righteous geniuses and overtly hostile aliens to find a peaceful solution to the mess up there. In turn, I was captured, put up for execution, and then watched Savage's men march blindly into a slaughter on the orders of an idiot – an idiot who also sold me out because of his own, misplaced ego."

His voice had steadily risen, almost to the point of shouting. "After that, I crash landed a spaceship and hiked through a desert to make it home. Once I got there, I found out that my wife and daughter were holding on by their fingernails in the wake of one of the chairman's retributive onslaughts, and I was being pursued as a fugitive. If that wasn't enough, yesterday I found out that RDA had, in fact, sent an assassin after me _and_ my family – and, believe me," he said with an uncertain laugh, "I'm heavily glossing over the last seventy-odd hours.

"So, _Mister Ashworth_, if you think you're in a position to negotiate with a person in my position, please let me know so that I can quickly divest you of that notion."

Keeping a calm tone, Franklin said, "We didn't send an 'assassin' after you, we…"

Abe interrupted him by raising his gun and pulling the trigger. The noise was deafening, and the bullet passed only inches by Franklin's head before it slammed into the wall behind him. Franklin dove to the floor a quarter of a second after what would have been the liquefaction of his brain had Abe's aim been off.

He stood from his seat and walked around to Franklin's side of the desk, lowering his gun at the cowering executive. "That's not what she told me after I broke her ribs with a golf club, _Frank_!" he shouted. "So don't insult me like that again."

"You can't kill me," Franklin replied from the floor. "You said it yourself: You need me to log in to the archives for you."

"No, I only need you to keep me on schedule." Abe pointed to the communicator in his ear. "On the other end of this line I have a decorated veteran of the Russian cyberwars, someone well versed in military-grade cyber security, much of it based on RDA's architecture. I'm more than confident that she could walk me through a hack into the archives, but I know it would take more time than I have.

"So which is more important to you? Is it your life or my schedule? I'd like to think there's a mutual benefit to keeping both, but I can adapt to not having either."

Franklin took a number of quick, deep breaths, and then he slowly got to his feet. He brushed himself off, and then sat in his chair. He unlocked his workstation, and then began the process of accessing RDA's vast data archives. Most departments of the multinational conglomerate only had access to sections of the database – just enough to be able to perform their critical functions. AMIS, on the other hand, was able to access any part of the archives.

RDA's archives were a history of the company's transactions, correspondence, and workflows going back to RDA's humble founding as a family-owned, green energy business in the overhyped "green economy" boom of the last century. As RDA grew into the world's premier research company, and then one of its first true, private quasi-national entities, the archives expanded to contain a diverse array of data that encompassed every conceivable endeavor of human intellect and creativity. At this point, every hour it added as much information as was created by the entirety of the first six-thousand years of human civilization.

Too vast and dynamic to be navigated by any one person – or any one team of people – RDA had spent billions of dollars creating advanced algorithms and programs to search through the massive repository; but even then it required specialized training. It was in this repository that Abe, due to his intrinsic paranoia, had buried his most vital information before departing for Pandora, and where he hoped to find the seeds of RDA's final undoing.

After passing through a series of security checks, Franklin pushed away from his desk and said, "You're in, Mister Scheller."

* * *

Tseyo had intended to say goodbye to Natalie before embarking on this journey, but two things had prevented him from doing so. The first was Norm's constant presence as they made the last preparations, and the second was the lack of affection he expected to feel for her following their actions the night before.

From the time he was a child, he had been told that once he mated with the right woman, he would feel like a missing part of his being had suddenly been rediscovered. Despite the strong response from his body to Natalie's advances, and their intimacy thereafter, he felt little different when he woke up the next morning than he had before their attempted copulation. It did not disturb him, but it did confuse him.

Tseyo had spent much of the rest of the morning considering what it could mean that his energy had not responded to Natalie's affection for him. He found it a difficult question to ponder. Although he was not unfamiliar with couples who, upon trying to bond, discovered their incompatibility and were repulsed, he did not know of any other examples where couples bonded apathetically.

His thoughts had begun to settle on figuring that the absence of a strong, positive response had to be an indication of incompatibility. That suited him well – even if he was disappointed by it – given his initial reluctance to entertain her more physical overtures. Tseyo doubted, though, that Natalie would be willing to settle for that.

He might have explored that concern more deeply, but by now Tseyo's thoughts were focused on keeping his impatience in check. Tseyo knew that countless hunts and battles had been ruined by a person's impatience resulting in well-laid traps springing prematurely and to disaster for all involved. He had been involved in some of those disasters.

However, the very little information he was being given coupled with the silence of his companions – supplanted by the droning white noise of the world outside the confined space – to make him all too eager for the battle to get underway. He looked at Norm and asked, "Are we there, yet?"

"No," Norm replied. "But we're getting close." Tseyo frowned and leaned against the wall. He expected the silence to persist a while longer, but then Norm said, "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course, teacher."

"Why did you paint yourself like that? I never saw your people do that kind of extensive artwork."

"We do," Tseyo replied, "but usually for celebration. You're right that it's not common for hunting or warfare."

"So why did you?"

He shrugged. "I let Natalie do it."

Norm raised his eyebrow and asked, "I thought you two were going to keep a distance after—?" He did not need to finish his thought for Tseyo to understand the question.

He nodded slowly and said, "We were, but I asked for her help to finish the rites."

"You know she's very confused about her feelings for you," Norm said with a frown. "You shouldn't be encouraging her."

"Children can't learn from their mistakes if they aren't allowed to make them," he retorted.

Tseyo respected Norm's intelligence, but he was always very transparent when he worked through his thoughts. Norm's eyes seemed to dart around as he processed Tseyo's reply, and then he looked ashen. "Did you mate with her?"

Sky People had a way of saying one thing while meaning another – a kind of false speech – which Tseyo found impossible to understand. However, he had learned how to speak partial truths, even if he was not always successful in passing them by Norm. Not wanting to cause his teacher and friend any undue concern, particularly given that he had resolved the conflict within himself, he made an attempt to diffuse his curiosity with partial truths. He took a breath and replied, "It's not possible for us to mate."

"True," Norm said. "But did you try?"

"I asked her about why she felt the way she did, and she told me."

"You're not worried that she might keep courting you, now?"

"Not unless she can come home with me."

Norm let out a short laugh and said, "Yeah, I don't see that happening." Even though Tseyo had been waiting for such a dismissive response, he had not expected to feel somewhat hurt by it. Still, he let the feeling pass without commenting on it in order to let the conversation end. Norm took a deep breath and continued, "Just be careful, Tseyo. Natalie's a nice girl, but she comes from a much different background than yours. You and she may not understand the same things in the same ways."

"I understand, teacher," he said with a nod. "But you shouldn't worry. There are more important things to think about today."

"That's very true," he said.

They were quiet again, for how long he was not sure. The silence was interrupted when he felt the compartment come to a sudden stop. Norm touched the device in his ear and spoke in his native tongue. His tone had a barely muted nervousness, but whatever he learned in those few moments did not cause him to panic further.

Norm spoke to the group, and they appeared to brace themselves. Then he turned to Tseyo and said, "We're here. Are you ready?"

* * *

The protest Abe had ordered up to lure SecOps out from inside RDA's compound was not the most impressive thing Luke had ever seen, but there was a significant presence of RDA and city security on hand to keep them at bay. Luke turned onto the ramp for the RDA loading dock and stopped at the barricade, waiting for the guards to allow him final passage. He tapped his earpiece and said quickly, "We're at the last gate, stay cool."

"How many guards are there?" Norm asked.

"Just three in the guardhouse," he replied. "I'm sure there're more inside. Will let you know."

When he came to a full stop, two of the guards emerged – both armed with submachine guns – and approached him. Neither was physically impressive, but Luke was more concerned about their marksmanship than whether or not he'd engage in fisticuffs. One also carried a mirror on a long pole, and he began to walk around the van, using the mirror to check the van's chassis for explosives. The other guard walked up to the driver-side door and said, "Can I have your driver's license, shipment order, and vehicle scan documentation, please?"

Luke produced his license – made current by Abe's forgery – and a tablet left in the van by the Soldiers, to which Dawn had uploaded falsified shipment and scanning records. If everything worked out, the guards would accept that he was delivering fifty office chairs.

"I'll be right back," the guard said, and then returned to the guardhouse.

"Take your time."

Moments later, the guard checking for explosives gave his colleagues a thumbs-up, and soon after that the guard who reviewed Luke's documents returned. "Technically, I shouldn't let you in," he said.

Luke's stomach lurched. "Why's that?"

"You're two minutes late from your expected arrival," he replied.

"It's all this police bullshit," Luke replied defensively, thinking quickly, and leaned out the window to indicate the crowd. "I had to detour fucking _twice_!"

The guard held up a hand and said, "Relax, sir. My supervisor isn't here, so I don't care." He handed Luke back Luke's driver's license and tablet, then added, "Just make sure that the next time you make a delivery, you make it inside the window. Site supervisor's a real asshole about that."

"I'll keep that in mind," Luke replied. "Thanks."

The guard gave him a nod, and then gave a thumbs-up to the guard who remained in the booth. The barricade lowered soon thereafter, and the guard stepped away from the van. "Have a good day, sir."

"You too."

Luke drove forward, entering a short tunnel which led into the main loading dock. He activated his earpiece and said, "Okay, we're in. I'll tell you what the numbers look like in just a second."

"We're standing by," Norm said. "Tseyo's about ready to jump out the doors on his own."

"Yeah, well, that'd be bad," Luke replied with a short laugh.

Once he pulled around the final bend in the tunnel, Luke took a quick survey of the activity on the loading dock. It was an unremarkable expanse of concrete, bunkered several floors beneath ground level. Vehicles were directed to pull up to a raised platform, from which a ramp would extend to assist with unloading. "Okay, I see five guards and seven – no, eight – people unloading other trucks."

"Where are the guards?" Norm asked.

"Three are up on the platform, near the main corridor," he explained. "When I back into our spot, they'll be on your left. One of them is down here waving me in, and the other looks like he's getting ready to operate our ramp, straight back and to your right."

"Guns?"

"Just handguns, nothing special."

Norm snorted. "Yeah, until they start shooting."

As Luke began to back into the spot to which he was directed, he said, "I can probably take out the guy down here. What are you doing?"

* * *

"We're working on it," Norm replied. He looked at Tseyo and said, "You're going to go out first, all right? There will be a group of three people to your left. Is that too many for you to take?"

Tseyo very lightly shook his head, his eyes showing complete control and concentration, and he began to readjust himself so that he could quickly exit the van – although not before he brusquely discarded his exopack against the hold's back wall.

"Just remember to be fast," Norm said. "And then wait to follow the rest of us." Tseyo nodded, his tail twitching.

He looked alternately at Amy and Matthew and said, "There's going to be one guy at the top of the ramp. You two rush him, all right?" They nodded just as the van came to a full stop.

Whether it was the adrenaline beginning to pump through him or a senseless, final act of male bravado, Norm leaned forward and gave Amy a deep kiss. She did not push him back right away, but soon leaned back and said dryly, "Battle first, sex later, Norm."

Norm grinned and then touched his earpiece. "We're ready back here."

Luke did not respond, but Norm could hear him opening his door to exit the van. He could barely make out the conversation outside the van, but it did not sound like Luke was under duress. There was a bang at the van's rear doors, which Norm assumed was the ramp sliding into place. His heart began to race. When Luke disengaged the locks on the rear doors, the sound seemed to echo in Norm's head, no matter how faint it might have actually been.

There was a flood of light when the doors opened, and Tseyo leapt from the van with predatory speed – indeed, Norm was certain he heard a strong hiss as the Na'vi warrior disembarked. He was also certain he heard an array of expletives from the unsuspecting persons on the loading dock.

Amy and Matthew were also quick to charge up the ramp, arriving at the stunned guard about the same time that Tseyo had reached his targets. When Norm stepped out onto the ramp, he looked over and saw Luke apply a _coup de grâce_ on his targeted guard by ramming the man's head into the still-open driver-side door with such force that Norm was surprised the door did not break from its hinges.

Norm ran past Amy and Matthew, who were divesting the guard of his radio and gun, and arrived at Tseyo's side. He could see that Tseyo had thrown one guard into a wall – and the man was slowly writhing on the floor, apparently and only semi-conscious – and had thoroughly incapacitated a second guard. The third had his arm up over his head as he cowered at the Na'vi's feet.

"Nice job," Norm said as he reached down and took the guard's gun, meeting no resistance from the terrified man.

He paused in the middle of the action when he recalled both his and Abe's insistence that the assault be conducted without weapons, but then Tseyo's caution from earlier came to mind. _Can you promise that our enemies won't want to kill us?_ he recalled the Na'vi saying. Norm resumed holstering the weapon.

Now armed, Norm called out to the others, "Let's move!" When they rallied around him, he noticed that they had similarly equipped themselves with their subdued enemies' weapons – and Norm assumed with fewer reservations than he had.

Before they ran as a group down the basement complex's main corridor to continue their assault, Norm looked back at the civilians who had been on the loading dock. To a person, they stood motionless and slackjawed, eyes wide in surprise. Norm grinned and then resumed the attack.

As they had practiced, Luke peeled off from the main group to storm the maintenance room and gain control of the tower's elevators. "See you later!" he said, almost cheerfully it seemed to Norm, as he went about his assignment.

When the remaining group reached the elevator bay, they happened upon a small gathering of employees and guards who were waiting for one of the elevators. It did not take these people more than a few fractions of a second to process that they were in trouble.

One of the guards, however, had enough presence of mind to quickly activate the radio on his shoulder and shout, "Breach! Breach!" before Norm punched him square in his jaw, knocking him backwards. It took Matthew's assistance before the guard submitted totally to them, but Amy had far less trouble getting the unarmed employees to comply with her commands.

Tseyo, in the meantime, grabbed the other guard by his shirt and, raising him to eye level, slammed him against a wall. "Fucking _Christ_!" the guard exclaimed in a panic. "Please, fuck, let me down!" Tseyo hissed and, though it was unlikely that he understood the guard's plea, released him. He landed hard, crying out when he rolled one of his ankles, and Amy was quick to restrain him further.

Norm heard over the security's radios, "This is central. Who just called out a breach?"

He pushed the restrained guard against the wall and ordered, "Call it off!" The guard just spit in his face.

It would not have mattered if he had complied with Norm's demand. A moment later, a panicked voice came over the radio. "This is the loading dock. We just got attacked by aliens! They ran down Access Hall Alpha."

"Shit," Norm muttered. If that worrisome enough, a moment later he heard two distinct bangs echo from the corridor. He activated his earpiece and asked, "Luke, where are you?" Silence. "Luke?"

In the meantime, the guard's radio announced, "This is central. All personnel on Sublevels Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie, enact quarantine procedures."

"Sorry, Norm," he eventually replied. "I had trouble getting into the maintenance room. Shot the lock, we're good."

"Do you see the panel for the elevators?"

"I see lots of panels. This is going to take some time."

An elevator that the now-suppressed employees and guards had called before the team's entrance arrived on the floor, and the team piled in. Norm looked for the cab's identifier and relayed it to Luke. "We're on our way up. Get the other elevators locked down as soon as you can. I think we're going to have company soon."

* * *

From her seat in the Soldiers' command bunker, Jude had watched intently while Abe and the Soldier accompanying him had taken the AMIS employees hostage. Abe's fight with the guard at the front desk had caused a small crowd to gather around the monitor of the Soldier in front of her; and the spectators had dispersed with a measure of disappointment when the fight did not end with either Abe or the guard getting shot.

The girl who had been fitted with the stealth camera had been particularly harsh as she had gone from one office to the next, pulling out the unsuspecting workers and frequently striking them with her acquired gun. After the employees had been rounded up, things fell into a boring sentry routine, occasionally punctuated by excitement when a hapless RDA employee showed up for work only to be taken hostage.

Jude was still concerned about the constant monitoring of city traffic in the unidentifiable cities. From the timestamps on the traffic cameras, she was certain one city was on the East Coast, and another was in the Midwest. Soldiers monitoring these cities had spent a while providing traffic updates to unseen drivers, and in the last few minutes had switched to monitoring law enforcement communications.

She had also been able to identify a station which was dedicated to activities in San Francisco, as the Soldiers operating it had mentioned street names she recognized from near her hotel suite. It sounded to her like they were performing a kind of crowd control. "Make sure nobody lingers in the road," one of the controllers said. "The fascists will use any excuse to rush you. They're using Union Square as a staging ground, so watch for increased movement to the south."

In the midst of the activity, a Soldier turned away from her screen to look at the small group of the Soldiers' leadership which had assembled in the room. She said to one female in particular, "Commander, the primary van is inside the target perimeter."

The woman, who might have been the same age as Jude but whose line of work had left her appearing years older, nodded and called out, "Groups A and B, check in."

"Group A. The package just needs to be signed for," the Soldier monitoring the Midwestern city said.

"B, fifty seconds to delivery," the East Coast station reported.

"All right. Main group, synch up the packages and send out the signal in five minutes." The female Soldier tracking the van nodded and turned back to her station. The commander looked at Jude and said with a sneer, "This oughta keep SecOps out of your friends' hair."


	26. Execution, Part IV

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

Contrary to the popular, American mythos, Washington, D.C., was not originally envisioned as being the antithesis of the grandiose, monarchic capitals of European powers. To the contrary, the city's early architects studied city plans of several European capitals, envisioning an American Paris. It took a century's worth of poor adherence to the architects' master vision before America's capital underwent a reimagining. At the turn of the Twentieth Century, the same time that America became a recognized world power, it was decided that Washington, D.C., would be reshaped to make it a beacon of humble, democratic ideals.

The architectural and social engineering which followed resulted in a city of extremes. At the core of the capital city, meticulous upkeep and world-recognized monuments to the nation's ideals drew people's eyes away from the decaying conditions in the city's residential areas. Business leaders, however, had already been moving across the city's borders into neighboring Maryland and Virginia to find more favorable business conditions. By the time the social unrest of the turbulent Nineteen-Sixties hit Washington, D.C., many affluent residents were simply looking for a compelling reason to flee the city.

The resulting "white flight" phenomenon left America's capital demographically and economically gutted. Washington fell into a cycle of disrepair and crime that made the city as infamous as its monuments made it famous. Meanwhile, suburban sprawl reached from the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in the east to the feet of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the West.

As happened at the turn of the Twentieth Century, the start of the next century saw local and national leaders try to reinvent Washington, D.C., as a model of the urban renaissance which was prophesied to sweep urban centers across the United States. Gentrification projects began in every neighborhood, new construction was encouraged in its business districts, and grand plans were laid for the revitalization of the city's Monumental Core. The suburban sprawl and infill had become home to a highly educated, specialized workforce whose talents many hoped would fulfill the city's ambition to become one of America's great cities not just for being the seat of its government, but as a powerhouse for innovation and economic prowess.

For the first half of the Twenty-First Century, Washington, D.C., appeared well on its way to realizing the grand vision of a new, smarter kind of city. However, the worldwide environmental degradation which had paralyzed the national leaders in America's capital eventually laid its ambitions to ruin.

With the failure of a coherent energy policy, mountaintop removal in the Appalachian Mountains went on unchecked as the search for more plentiful coal veins intensified. The ecologic catastrophe rendered some places uninhabitable, and land values collapsed in the western part of the greater Washington metropolis. To the city's east, despite decades of activism by residents to "Save the Bay," exploitation of the Chesapeake Bay reached its zenith and resulted in the destruction of its ecosystem and much of the watershed.

The two disasters resulted in millions of people abandoning the suburban sprawl, hoping to experience the long-promised benefits of smart urban engineering. It was too much for the city to handle. Property values skyrocketed past wages, stalling growth. The transportation infrastructure collapsed, resulting in a localized economic depression as workers no longer found it feasible to commute across the metropolis. Once again, Washington, D.C., was in need of revitalization.

Before the end of the Twenty-First Century, the Congress of the United States fell into line with the laws of every other urban center in America and repealed the size restrictions on the federal city's buildings. There would be no more appearances of modesty in Washington, as such a concept could do nothing but suffocate the city. Almost overnight, the gentle lines of sight of the city's low-rise offices, which had helped define Washington's skyline for two-hundred years, were transformed into a cragged range of towering cranes.

By the time the city celebrated its three-hundredth birthday, plans were in motion to construct scores of skyscrapers of the kind which had once been reserved for American cities such as New York and Chicago. One generation later saw the city's pinnacle achievement, the Washington Monument, trapped in the shadows of progress – despite so many promises by leaders of all stripes to maintain the dignity of the National Mall.

Now almost a century after the capital city embarked on the path to become one more network of urban canyons that defined America's cities, Alan Ross, one of D.C.'s ubiquitous, federal government employees, was ready for an early lunch break. He was not hungry – at least not any more than anyone else who let themselves believe that synthetic protein packets could constitute a full meal – but he was eager to get his hands on one of the last remnants of local delicacy.

Philadelphia had its cheesesteaks, New York had cheesecake, and Washington, D.C., had half-smokes. Coarsely ground, spiced and smoked, hybrid beef-pork sausages, half-smokes had been a treat among Washingtonians for over two-hundred years. In their heyday, half-smokes were served by hotdog vendors and in restaurants across the city for a few dollars apiece. They were widely available at popular, open-air markets. Presidents indulged in them at local hotspots, as did visiting heads of state. But as meat prices began to climb with the collapse of free range pastures and grain production, genuine half-smokes became less common and, ultimately, only a feature of high class restaurants.

There were a few entrepreneurial street vendors, however, who knew that there would always be people like Alan who would pay a premium to get the real thing in a convenient location. They would save a portion of their profits – if they were turning profits – for weeks until they could afford a bulk purchase of the now-rare sausage, and then generate consumer hype by announcing a day in advance of when they would have the delicacy on hand. Despite their blatant mark-ups, the street vendors would almost always sell out of the meat before the end of the day, if not before the end of the lunch hour.

Today, one such vendor was two blocks away from Alan's office; and Alan would be damned if he missed his chance to get a half-smoke.

Hurrying out of his office's lobby into the heart of downtown Washington, Alan walked briskly along the busy avenue until he arrived at the park where the street vendor had set up his business. There was already a line of some twenty people, and he dutifully took his place in the back of that queue. By the time he was the eighth person from the vendor's station, there were thirty people waiting behind him. When he was the fourth, the line threatened to curve around the block.

Even with the mask of his exopack firmly sealed to his face, its filters working full-time in the deceptively "clear" sky, the alluring aroma of his sought-after meal filled his nostrils. He could practically taste the spices which awaited him. His mouth was watering by the time he approached the window of the street cart to place his order.

The elderly, dark-skinned man who operated the cart gave Alan a smile that would be the envy of any television anchor. He knew what Alan wanted, and Alan could only guess that he was smiling because he knew today was going to be a profitable day.

His tongs already held one of the sausages when he asked, "What can I get for you today, sir?"

"Half-smoke," Alan replied quickly. "Load it up with cheese, onions, and chili."

"Chili is another three dollars," the man said, still smiling.

Alan balked. "Is it real chili?" he asked skeptically.

"One-hundred percent, sir." That was very likely a lie, despite the stringent laws to prevent the false advertising of food's contents, but it would be impossible to prove. Maybe the beef and beans were authentic, but the sauce was most certainly an imitation product. Alan ran through the possibilities of how he was getting ripped off more as a thought exercise than to build a legitimate claim, as he knew full well that public health authorities had better things to do than run down the nuances of how a street vendor presented his menu.

Alan shrugged. "The half-smoke is thirty-five dollars anyway," he said, "so fine. Lay it on thick."

"Forty dollars today, sir," the vendor corrected. "Grain prices climbed again." That much Alan knew was true, but whether or not the market spike occurred before the vendor made his bulk purchase was less certain. Once again, Alan would have been hard-pressed to prove otherwise if he were so inclined.

Alan snorted and said, "I'm glad I didn't ask for two."

The vendor chuckled lightly and, though he seemed to get the joke, replied, "One per customer, sir."

The half-smoke was set inside a toasted hotdog bun and then cut lengthwise, opening to reveal the perfectly cooked, deep red meat. Into that fold, the vendor provided a healthy portion of chili, onto which he piled chopped onion and lines of melted, golden yellow cheese. The vendor closed the sausage in aluminum wrapping, placed it in a bag, but kept it inside the cart until Alan paid the forty-three dollars.

"Would you like chips and drink, sir?" he asked casually as he took Alan's money.

"Maybe next time," Alan replied as he reached for the bag. "Forty-three bucks is enough for lunch."

"Okay, sir." He said with a nod. "Have a good day."

"Likewise."

If Alan had not been so fixated on his meal, he might have taken notice of the activity across the street by the Washington Parking Enforcement Authority. A lone enforcement officer approached an illegally parked garbage truck, tablet in hand, ready to provide the city with an easy two-thousand dollar profit. Alan might also have noticed the same officer back away from the garbage truck's cab in horror when he saw a battery of canisters, the principal charges of a larger bomb concealed in the truck's hopper.

After Alan crossed the first road on his way back to his office, he did see the parking enforcement officer – who had made a hasty return to his car – speeding through the nearby intersection. Before his mind could fully process the unusual sight, the garbage truck's four-thousand pound bomb detonated.

Short of three-hundred feet from the point of detonation, Alan was subjected to five pounds per square inch of overpressure from the blast. Having been unable to brace for the explosion's shock front, Alan was knocked off his feet and thrown into the concrete wall of the building next to which he had been casually strolling a moment earlier. His left arm and leg were broken, and his skull had been fractured such that intracranial hemorrhaging resulted.

Alan might have survived these injuries were he not also showered with glass and shrapnel from what little remained of the garbage truck, destroyed cars, and shattered office windows. These pieces of shrapnel, traveling in excess of one-hundred miles per hour, were lethal for up to a full city block in all directions – excepting for those on the other end of the block next to which the truck bomb had been parked, whose primary office tower had the misfortune to absorb the full effect of the bomb's destruction.

Sitting atop one of Washington's many subway stops, the tower's ease of access was considered a great convenience for the many RDA financial wizards, lawyers, and government lobbyists who populated the satellite office building. However, the open space which contained the station's escalators was also a great convenience for the blast wave to separate the lower floors from their support columns. The reinforced concrete of the skyscraper might have withstood even a slightly smaller bomb, but the force of this explosion resulted in a catastrophic failure.

Seconds after Alan regained a painful consciousness, covered in dust, blood, and glass, the targeted office building collapsed into the road. Although the impromptu demolition had taken place behind him, the force of the building's collapse sent additional debris in Alan's direction.

Alan tried to stand up, but the pain was immobilizing – not that he would have gotten far with a debilitating loss of inner ear balance. Even rolling over to try and crawl out of the zone of destruction was impossible. He had enough presence of mind to realize that, in a few minutes, he would be dead. Not wanting to totally surrender, however, he tried to look around and signal somebody for help. If his eardrums had not ruptured, he would be so overwhelmed by others screaming for help that he might have given up on the effort. Even the lingering dust was so thick that he could not discern a particular individual at whom he might shout.

With his hearing gone, sight failing, and the pain in his body blocking out all other physical sensations, only two senses struggled to remain some kind of normalcy. His mouth tasted of blood and dust, and his nose was filled by gasoline and smoke. In his final moments, however, another smell cut through the horrors around him – the half-smoke. Somehow, throughout and despite the carnage, his would-have-been lunch had survived, the bag clutched in his right hand.

Alan was to become a casualty in a war between worlds that never occupied more than a few passing thoughts in his daily routine. As frightened and angry as he might have been by his untimely death, his final thought was to believe it was a sign of mercy that death's embrace would come to him smelling of a half-smoke.

* * *

"Holy shit! Did you guys see that?" one of the Soldiers excitedly shouted. "Ka-_Boom_!"

"Let's go to the booth for a fucking _replay_," the Soldier sitting at the desk monitoring the Midwestern city replied, and moments later the screen washed out in a bright light that was soon replaced by fires, smoke, and dust. It was a near mirror image of what was unfolding on the screen of the East Coast city.

While the Soldiers expressed their jubilation at what they clearly viewed as a successful mission, Jude was in shock. She turned in her chair towards the commanding officers who were watching over the affair and shouted, "What the fuck did you people just do?"

"You didn't seriously think SecOps was going to view a protest by some bored teenagers as a thread, did you?" the woman in charge replied. "Maybe with a couple of their offices reduced to rubble, they'll react a little differently."

"You're nuts," Jude said, almost too stunned to say anything else. "How many people did you just kill to make a goddamned point?"

The woman just scoffed. "There are a billion people in this country," she replied. "They're not all special. Besides, this was Abe's plan."

Jude let out a short, sharp laugh. Even though she was well behind the curve on knowing the intricacies of Abe's plot, she had been over his biography enough times – and had enough experience spotting liars – to know the woman was not being straight. "I don't know the guy well," she said, "but I truly doubt that."

"I'm sure that's what he'll tell the fascists when they get a hold of him," the woman replied. "But it's undeniably true that he came to us looking for help. And it's true that he led an assault on RDA's headquarters at the same time that two of its satellite offices blew up. Even if there isn't any evidence that he ordered the bombings—," she grinned before commenting, "which there will be – at the very least it'll be proven that he conspired to commit an act of terrorism. You'd be amazed at how little evidence courts need these days to convict people of that."

"You're setting him up?" Jude shook her head in disbelief. "You killed hundreds of people just to set a guy up for a prison sentence?"

"Hey, this moral crusade that he's on was _our_ idea fifteen years ago," the woman replied, her eyes narrow and voice firm. "But he swooped in and got some of our best people sent to prison on bullshit charges. He even got the RDA mole who was helping us killed. Do you really think we were going to help him become the man who self-righteously, single-handedly toppled RDA? The savior of Pandora and the Na'vi?" She snorted. "Fuck that."

Once more, Jude almost found herself at a loss for words. She had no sympathy for Abe, as that wasn't her job. However, the callousness of these terrorists was too much for her to take in stride. "So when SecOps finally catches wind that they've got a problem inside their headquarters, if they haven't already, on top of the bombings of their other buildings, do you think they're going to let Abe live long enough to even finish his mission? A mission which would have, I presume, helped your cause. What does blowing up buildings to get revenge on a single man do for you?"

"We still have all the evidence of the mining fraud on Pandora that he tried to suppress," the woman replied. "We don't need his help to release that. We just need RDA out of the way so we can make it viral. Abe was the first, real chance we've had to knock out the headquarters in a very long time."

Jude was back to her original suspicions. "You're nuts," she said. "RDA's going to kill him, and then they're going to come after you with a vengeance. You're not going to get anything out of this."

The woman took a breath, nodded slowly, and replied, "We're just going to have to agree to disagree." At that, she quickly withdrew her sidearm and fired three bullets into Jude's chest.

The force of one bullet alone would have been enough to knock Jude back; but the quick succession of strikes threw Jude to the floor, taking the chair down with her. The pain from her broken rib was now indistinguishable from the fire that seemed to be radiating throughout her body. She wanted to cry out in agony, but she found there was no air in her collapsing lungs to do so. Instead, she could only gurgle the blood that was filling her throat.

Jude's murderer knelt beside her and said confidently, "To answer your next question: No, I'm not worried about what effect this is going to have on the hostage exchange. We've got that covered."

* * *

When the commercial ended, even before the fade-in had finished, the main camera zoomed in on the pair of lead anchors. Sue gave a nervous look at her partner, and then turned to the camera and said, "We want to tell you what we know, as we know it. But we just got a report in that there's been some sort of explosion in Washington, D.C."

The scene changed from the familiar set of "Good Morning, San Francisco!" to what appeared to be a rooftop camera in the nation's capital. A thick, dark cloud of billowing smoke rose from between buildings and into the otherwise clear morning sky. Beneath the smoke there appeared to be a large, but thinning, plume of dust working its way between skyscrapers.

Dan Steel said over the images, "One report said – and we can't confirm any of this – that a truck or bus may have exploded downtown. We have no further details than that, but you're seeing live pictures right now."

Natalie felt her stomach turn over. Every so often there would be a car bombing in one of America's cities, but those barely got headlines on the evening news. Some people claimed that the low coverage was due to government censorship; but it was most people's opinion that a few car bombings between rival gangs, political partisans, or by anti-government lone-wolves was simply not enough to jar people's attention, given the many horrors taking place in the decaying world around them.

However, because these instances of violence had afforded Natalie ample chance to see the kind of devastation a car bomb could cause, it was clear to her from the images on television that something much larger had occurred in the nation's capital. It also occurred to her that it would be far too coincidental for a terrorist to launch an attack on the same day that her father was leading an incursion against RDA.

Confirming her suspicions that something much larger was happening, far from treating the incident on screen as a routine act of terrorism, Sue said, "We are turning programming over to our network headquarters in Atlanta for a special report. Please stay tuned."

The live images from Washington were briefly replaced by the network's "Special Report" title sequence, over which an unnamed announcer said, "From Atlanta, this is an ACN News special report."

When the title sequence faded away, the nationally recognized network anchor, Christian Brown, was on screen. Far from the homey living room set from a moment earlier, Christian stood in a pseudo-command bunker, surrounded by television monitors. She looked into the main camera and said calmly but authoritatively, "We're joined now by the entire network, America's Cable Network, interrupting your local programming to bring you news of a major, reported explosion in Washington, D.C."

Natalie could not confine her worries within her. She looked at her mother and asked, "What does RDA have in D.C.?"

"Lobbyists mainly," Krysta replied flatly, her eyes not straying from the television. "Its East Coast financial division headquarters, the high-speed rail station, and some production facilities outside of the city." She shook her head and, revealing that she shared Natalie's worries, said, "They have almost nothing to do with Pandora out there."

"Obviously you can see on your screen a major fire in the, uh, what looks like the downtown area," Christian said. "We're joined remotely by our affiliate station in D.C., senior producer Michael Erkson reporting. Mike, can you orient our viewers to what they're seeing on screen?"

"I can, Christian," Mike said. "The camera is atop our station in Arlington, Virginia, just across the river, so you're looking, uh, northeast into downtown. We have a crew on the way to set up the geonet in order to provide the viewers with full access to the scene. Of course, we have to work with emergency officials before that can go up."

With the advent and widespread use of three-dimensional entertainment systems, producers of television equipment devised a system by which viewers could immerse themselves into any program from any angle. The geonet, as it was called, was an airborne network of hundreds of small cameras that communicated with each other in order to position themselves in such a manner as to create a full, three-hundred sixty-degree view of any space. This network of cameras then broadcasted a high-definition, faithfully replicated scene back to viewers, who could then manipulate the angles to their own desire. It was costly, but it saved networks from having to deploy multiple teams of camera crews and reporters around a location.

There was, however, another advent in journalism which almost made the geonet obsolete before it was created: citizen journalism. "Mike, we'll certainly wait for that to happen," Christian replied, "but I'm told by our producers here that we've achieved saturation of our ACtioN reporters, so we're going to start streaming those images live."

In order to cut costs, promote synergy across media, and improve viewer feedback with their programming, news networks at the dawn of social networking opened reporting up to their users. At first, amateur reports were intended to compliment main-stream reporting, but it did not take long before citizen journalists had as much clout as the supposed professionals. Once smart phones and other portable, high-speed communications devices had proliferated to common use, users were able to give news networks direct access to their cameras. Once enough of these users converged on a single location and began streaming their amateur footage to the networks, producers could select mobile devices at random and broadcast the feeds live.

"Before we go to our ACtioN reports," Christian said, "we want to remind you at home that their footage is unedited and may be graphic."

Before any normal person's reflexes might have allowed them to change channels to avoid the forewarned, graphic content, the camera cut away to someone's mobile device. They appeared to be several blocks away from a collapsed building, its rubble on fire, while secondary fires raged among adjacent buildings, cars, and in a park across the street. Scores of human bodies, some moving but many not, were visible in the streets and on sidewalks. Some bloodied people could be seen staggering away from the carnage.

Natalie buried her face in her mother's shoulder. Krysta put an arm around her, though it offered little reassurance.

"Oh, God," Christina could be heard to say. "That's – That's clearly, uh, something terrible has happened in our nation's capital."

"I know where that is," Mike interjected. "I'm watching your feed here. That's Farragut Square on the right of the screen. It's about two or three blocks north of the White House. That's near a very busy Metro station – subway station – especially this time of day."

"Could this have been an underground explosion?" Christina speculated. "A train derailment, perhaps?"

"No," Mike said. "That's clearly a surface-level blast. I served seventeen years in the Army, and that looks to me like a very, very large bomb went off."

"Okay," Christina replied. Then it sounded as though she were talking to someone off screen. "Okay, what? We're going to – I'm sorry?"

"Christina?"

"Uh, hold on, Mike. We're hearing now, well, we're _going_ now to our affiliate in Chicago, where again, we have the same kind of reports of an explosion and fires in _that_ city. ACN correspondent Tracy Rodriguez is standing by. Tracy, what do you know?"

"Christina, about fifteen minutes ago, our building was rocked by what felt and sounded like some kind of an explosion. It sounded like lightning had struck the building, but from the pictures you can see it's just a normal, overcast sky." Natalie turned her head away from her mom, steeling herself for the images which may be presented to her. "Except, of course, you can see there's this massive cloud of smoke coming from farther into downtown, and it's blanketing the city."

"Tracy, do you know what's – for our viewers who may not be familiar – where are we looking, exactly?"

"We know from the reports we're getting into the station here that this explosion took place at the high speed rail station, uh, in the western part of downtown across the Chicago River," Tracy said. "Um, that's a _huge_ RDA facility down there, obviously with the high-speed station."

It seemed to Natalie that there was little point in denying the connection between the attacks and her father's work. Once again she turned her face away from the screen, and she cried.

* * *

Franklin had ably navigated through RDA's archives and was, at Abe's command, downloading a trove of documentation from Abe's unwitting investigation into RDA's Pandorium conspiracy from years earlier. Towards the end of the download, the edges of one of the monitors on Franklin's desk flashed a bright red. Abe knew what it was before Franklin said it. "The chairman's calling me," he said calmly. He glanced up from his work and asked with faux sincerity, "Should I take a message?"

His gun still leveled at the executive, Abe stepped around to the other side of the desk and said, "Answer it, but don't think that will give you cover from this," he lightly dipped his gun, "if you decide to get brave."

"I wouldn't dare think so, Mister Scheller," he replied dispassionately. Franklin then answered the chairman's call. "I'm here, sir."

"And what the hell are you doing _there_?" Chairman Savage barked. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

Franklin looked taken aback. "I'm working the Scheller case, sir. You wanted it…"

"Are you nuts?" Savage interrupted. "Haven't you been paying attention at all? We already know what Abe's been up to."

Abe felt the blood drain from his face, and even Franklin appeared surprised. "Uh, excuse me?"

"Doesn't your office have a-hundred monitors?" the chairman asked, sounding incredulous. "Christ, Franklin, are you not even looking at your messages? Abe's attacked us! D.C. and Chicago are offline. They're gone."

Abe still felt uneasy, but now he was thoroughly confused. Franklin, too, appeared baffled, managing a sideways glance in his direction as though to ask for clarification. Abe shrugged in response.

Franklin reached for a remote on his desk and turned on one of the office's many screens. The images which appeared were stunning: plumes of smoke across city skylines, bleeding and crying people stumbling through dust and rubble. Abe's eyes widened in horror, and he felt the gun become heavy in his hand.

He turned back to Franklin and shook his head. The executive's lip curled in response. "I'm seeing it, sir. Clearly an act of terrorism."

"Goddamned right it is," Savage replied. "So forget what you're working on, I already made the call. SecOps and the Feds are going to raid his house in twenty minutes." Abe felt his knees begin to shake and bile rising up his throat. "In the meantime," the chairman continued, "I'm calling everybody in to do a damage assessment. Is Janet still with you?"

"Not at the moment, sir."

"Well, she's not answering in her office. Her secretary said she's with you. Find her and bring her up here. The meeting's in fifteen minutes."

"Yes, sir."

"And get rid of those goddamned kids outside. I'm ordering a lockdown of the campus. Get the city to push 'em back."

"Yes, sir." The call terminated, and Franklin leaned back in his chair. He nodded towards the screen and asked, "Are you proud of yourself, Mister Scheller?"

"This isn't me," Abe said, almost pleaded. "I did not organize that."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm not a terrorist!" he barked, thrusting his gun forward. Franklin just arched an eyebrow in response. Abe sighed and lowered his weapon. "Look, all I came here for is the information you're downloading. Think about this: What good does it do me to blow up RDA's buildings?"

Franklin just stared at him, his gaze occasionally turning back to the television screen. Cutting through the silence between them, a newscaster said, "Obviously, these images will recall for many the Las Vegas dirty bomb from nine years ago, and we're waiting to hear from emergency officials if, in fact, they have detected any radioactive particles in the wake of these explosions."

"Shit," Abe muttered. He raised his gun once again and touched his earpiece. "Dawn?" Silence. He felt his heart begin to race. "Dawn? Norm? Anybody?"

Before falling into a panic, Abe had a moment of clarity. The intelligence-centric office had been designed to turn into a kind of Faraday cage when sealed off, allowing only secure communications through. Cursing under his breath, Abe slowly backed towards the office door, unlocked it, and shouted down the hall, "Ashley! I need you here!"

The Soldier did not appear to be in any particular hurry when she turned down the corridor, but Abe hurried her into the office. "Watch him," he said. "I'll be right back." Before he left the office, he turned to the active monitor and added, "We're going to talk about this, too."

"What is there to say?" she asked with a wry grin. "You asked for a diversion. There it is."

Abe forced himself to keep his focus, and he withheld a reply. He raced through the empty hallways of the office suite back out to the main hallway, where his earpiece suddenly erupted in chatter. "Boss, where the _fuck_ are you?" Dawn said.

"I'm here," he replied. "I was in a dead zone."

"Oh yeah?" she said, sounding less than happy with his explanation. "Please tell me you know what's going on out there."

"No, not fully," he replied. "But RDA does. There's a strike team heading your way in _under_ fifteen minutes. Get out of there." He took a deep breath and emphasized the command. "Get my family and get out."

"Roger copy," she replied. "I'm shutting down. Good luck, everyone."

"Abe!" Luke shouted into his ear. "Abe, they've sealed off all the sublevels, and they're doing their damnedest to break through my barricade. It's only—," he stopped his sentence short. "Shit."

"Luke?" Abe heard what sounded like a struggle, some shouting, and then three distinct, sharp cracks. Luke never came back on the frequency.

* * *

Norm felt like he was going to be sick. There was no question about what happened to Luke, and little doubt in his mind that they were looking at the same fate if anything else went wrong. "Norm, where are you?" Abe asked. His voice had an unusual, unsettling tinge of panic to it.

"We're on our way up," he replied.

The elevator came to a sudden halt. Soon thereafter a voice came over the car's intercom and said, "Intruders, you are about to be detained. Resistance _will_ be met with deadly force. Disarm your weapons, and stand with your faces against the wall. The freak, too."

"Like hell we are," Amy replied. She looked up to one of the corners of the elevator car, raised her weapon, and fired two shots, disabling a video camera. Norm and the others quickly put their hands over their ears and dropped to the floor.

Tseyo hissed at Amy, and Norm, his ears ringing, said, "Warning would have been nice."

"Grow up," Amy replied flatly.

The voice on the intercom replied to her provocation. "All right, have it your way." Over the guard's stolen radio they carried with them, the same voice said, "Central, Sublevel Alpha. All clear. One suspect dead, four suspects locked in maintenance elevator Charlie-five on section three between floors sixty-seven and eight. No visual."

"We're just two floors from the last mezzanine," Matthew said. "We can make it if we can get out of here."

"I definitely don't want to stay in here too long," Norm replied with a nod. He looked around the cab and quickly spotted the access panel on the ceiling. He looked at Tseyo and said, "Can you climb through that?"

Tseyo rubbed his ears one more time and then stood up, having to bend against the car's ceiling. He tried to lift the panel, but Norm's heart sank when it appeared to be locked. Tseyo, however, showed no loss of determination. He quickly punched up and through the thin, stainless steel panel, in the process breaking the locks and hinges.

Tseyo moved the wrecked panel aside and easily made an escape from the car. He lowered his arms into the car and said, "Let me lift you." One by one, but quickly it seemed to Norm, they exited the car while the radio informed them of security's progress in arriving on their position. Once out of the car, they climbed the dimly lit, unnervingly confined elevator shaft's maintenance ladder to the final floor.

Norm took the chance to update Abe on their progress. "We're stuck in the elevator shaft," he said. "We're working on a way out."

"Work quickly," he replied. "We're running out of time."

"You don't need to tell me."

The outer door for the final mezzanine level operated on a powered lock. However, once they cut the power source, Tseyo was able to force the doors open. Not a second after Norm stepped out onto the floor, the last of the group to do so, the radio announced, "We have a containment breach. Suspects have escaped from the elevator."

A moment later, strobes began to flash throughout the enormous office tower, followed by a short, repeating siren. A pre-recorded announcement declared, "There has been an emergency reported in the building. Please proceed to your designated shelter-in-place stations. Do not exit the building."

They ran out of the maintenance corridor into the main part of the tower. Tseyo's emergence onto the floor immediately set off a panic among the employees who were making their way to safety zones inside the complex, and shouts began to echo inside the cavernous, conic tower. The shouting also drew the attention of the roaming teams of security, and the radio declared, "Central, suspects spotted! Section four mezzanine."

"Copy, engage suspects."

Norm looked up and saw three guards leaning over open railings three floors up, preparing to fire. "Get down!" Norm shouted, going so far as to leap onto Tseyo's back to ensure he hit the floor; not thinking that Tseyo might have perceived the action as hostile, given the chaos of the moment.

Indeed, when they fell onto the floor, Tseyo turned to him and snarled, apparently ready to strike back, but he stopped himself when he seemed to recognize Norm. "Why did you do that?" Tseyo asked.

Before he could answer, mixed among the shouts of terrified employees, Norm heard the guards open fire, which was followed soon after by bullet impacts on the concrete railing. "That's why," he replied curtly. After the guards' attack ended, without a word spoken between them, Norm, Amy, and Matthew reflexively sat up and returned fire. The guards dove for safety.

"We don't have enough ammo for a stand-off," Amy said as they ducked back down for their own cover. "We have to keep moving."

Matthew nodded towards a stairwell a short distance away. "There," he said. "We can't take the elevators anymore. It's our only chance of getting to Abe."

Norm was not so enthusiastic. Not only would they be slowed down, his legs started to ache at the mere thought of the task ahead. "That's fifteen flights of stairs," he said.

"What other choice do we have?"

Answering the doctor's question, the guards sent another hail of bullets their way, having adjusted their aim so that bullets impacted the floor mere inches from the group.

"You go, I'll cover," Amy declared.

"Be right behind us," Norm replied.

"You know I will." She quickly changed out the handgun's magazine and gave him a slight nod. "Ready?" He and Matthew nodded. "Go!"

Norm slapped Tseyo's shoulder as he stood and ran towards the stairwell, while Amy emptied her gun at the guards. Just as they arrived at the stairwell, Norm heard the guards return fire – it seemed much louder than Amy's report had been – and he felt a lump form in his throat. However, as they started up the second flight of stairs, Amy came through the door. For a moment he was relieved, but then he saw her gripping her left shoulder, blood running down her arm.

"I thought I could block one," she said with a slight laugh as she approached him. "I probably could have thought that through better."

He did his best to not show the extent of his concerns. Norm smiled, chuckled, and replied, "I know how you feel. You'll be fine, though."

Amy nodded, took a deep breath, and said, "Let's keep going. They'll be all over us in a minute."


End file.
